Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/263

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must also be happy ourselves. Let us remember that we must give account at last, for our happiness, as well as for any other sacred deposite. A capacity for it, has been given us; how have we improved it? Have we suffered it to grow inert, or morbid?

A cup was put into our hands, capable of containing the bright essences, which this beautiful creation yields. Have we allowed it to be filled with tears? have we dampened its chrystal surface with perpetual sighs?

The flowers of affection were sown along our path. Did we gratefully inhale them, or complain that weeds sometimes mingled with them, that the roses were not without thorns, that the fairest and purest, were never exempt from mildew and frost and death?

If we are so happy as at last to arrive at heaven, and some reproving seraph at its gate, should ask why we came mourning or repining along our pilgrim-path, and assure us that the dispositions of that blessed clime ought to have been cultivated below, that joy and praise were the elements of its atmosphere, how earnestly should we wish that the whole of our life had been a preparation for that Eternity of love, and that we had travelled thither with a countenance always radiant, "an everlasting hymn within our souls."