Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/298

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heavy rains, which wash away the bloom of the unfolding flower.

I once attended a funeral in a remote village of Moravians. It was in the depth of summer. Every little garden put forth beauty, and every tree was heavy with fresh, cool verdure.

It was a sabbath afternoon, when a dead infant was brought into the church. The children of the small congregation, wished to sit near it, and fixed their eyes upon its placid brow, as on a fair piece of sculpture. The sermon of the clergyman, was to them. It was a paternal address, humbling itself to their simplicity, yet lofty, through the deep, sonorous, tones of their native German. Earnestly and tenderly they listened, as he told them bow the baby went from its mother's arms, to those of the compassionate Redeemer. When the worship closed, and the procession was formed, the children, two and two, followed the mourners, leading each other by the hand, the little girls clothed in white.

The place of slumber, for the dead, was near the church, where they had heard of Jesus. It was a green, beautiful knoll, on which the sun, drawing towards the west, lingered with a smile of blessing. The turf had the richness of velvet, not a weed, or a straw defaced it. Every swelling mound was planted with flowers, and a kind of aromatic thyme, thickly clustering, and almost