BY MRS. M.H. ADAMS.

To become a childless mother is indeed one of the most severe afflictions which woman can be called to endure; yet it may be, it is often met with noble, Christian fortitude, with Christian humility and resignation, that soothe the acute pains of the mother's heart, and carry her thoughts away from earth and above its sorrows; so that we feel that she can and has found a balm, and has still left her consolation and happiness. But when we see a little child, whose mother God has taken, as fully realizing its bereavement, its loneliness, its absolute misfortune, as a child can do, we feel that to be a motherless child in this unchristian world, is indeed an affliction for which there seldom appears a balm; though we doubt not our Father hath the balm for this as for every other wound.

A young man sat by the corpse of his faithful wife, the mother of all his little babes. One child was gazing silently and inquiringly at her father, as he held his head weeping and groaning in anguish of spirit. A tender infant of a few weeks lay asleep in the cradle at his side. The young man's mother entered the room, and with tenderness of tone and manner, endeavored to calm his grief; with words of gospel love and faith to comfort him.

"Abby has been to you a kind, faithful and devoted wife, David; an agreeable companion and constant friend. Before God she was a humble child, and before the world a worthy disciple of Christ. You doubtless feel all this, and more. Few can speak evil of her, and very many will sincerely mourn her early death, and sympathize with you in this dreadful hour. But remember, David, you have, before this, professed trust and belief in the promises and love of God. Now is the time to make manifest your Christian faith, your hope in God, your belief in the gospel. Try not to be utterly disconsolate in your loneliness. God is very near to us, although this heavy cloud of sorrow lies between him and us."

They were interrupted by the entrance of the oldest child of the departed one, a sensitive, intelligent boy of six or seven years. Tears were in his eyes as he opened the door, and fell fast into the lap of his father as he tried to speak to him.

"Father," said he, "I have been down in the sitting-room, trying to read my little books; but I think so much of my dear dead mother, I can't read; and the tears come into my eyes so fast, that I can't see the pictures. I went to rock in my little chair, but I saw my mother's empty chair, and my little heart aches very much. It will be very lonesome and sad here, if I don't see mother anywhere. And who will take care of this little baby brother?"

No word was spoken by those present, but their tears and sobs told plainly that they too felt how lonely and sad that home would be without the gentle voice and cheerful song of that "dear mother." As no one checked him, Willie again spoke, and, as well as he could amid sobs and tears, told the bitterness of his young spirit.

"I love you some, father, but not as I did my mother; and now my mother is in heaven, who shall I have to take care of me and kiss me, father; who will say a prayer to me every night? Aunt Susan's prayers are not like mother's; and your voice doesn't sound so sweet by the side of my bed as my mother's did. Oh dear! what did my mother die for, and leave me a poor little motherless boy?"

His father then took him upon his knee, wiped his tears, and soothed him to sleep with gentle caresses. No word could David utter. For a long time he sat with his sleeping boy, beside his dead. The paleness of his cheek, and the frequent sigh, expressed his sorrow. His mother again tried to draw from him an expression of his Christian fidelity, fearing that he was untrue to his God and his Master under a trial so severe. When at length he did speak, a hardened heart might have been moved by his broken sentences and choking words, as he made an effort to assure his anxious parent.

"Mother, I have the utmost confidence in the mercy and goodness of God—even now that he has taken to himself one so very dear. I feel sure there is some great and important lesson which he would have me learn from this sorrowful event. I have all faith that Abby is at rest, and will still love those of us who are left on the earth to mourn. I believe we shall meet each other in the future, that we shall recognize and love each other, with a far more perfect and a purer love than we have cherished here. I shall be lonely, and miss from my hours at home the counsel, the aid, the cheerfulness, sympathy and attentive love of one of the best of women. Her beautiful example in the service of her Master will often be remembered with deep and sincere grief.

"All this I could bear calmly; if it were more bitter, I could bear it and not weep. But to think of my children—as motherless babes; to hear Willie tell his sorrow, and mourn so bitterly in his tender years for a mother—so dear; to feel that with his susceptibility and keen sensitiveness he realizes so fully his loss; to hear him sob on his pillow at night, and, when alone, call himself 'little motherless Willie;'—oh, mother! what man or Christian would not bow beneath a burden like this?—It is the contemplation of four motherless children that wounds me most. It seems to me Abby herself would not reprove me, could those cold lips now bring me a message from her spirit in heaven."

With expressions like those in the chamber of the dead was every hour in the home of David embittered, for weeks and months, by the little mourning child. He gathered flowers and laid them before his father, saying, "I don't suppose you care about them, father; but my mother isn't here to take them. I pick them because they look up into my face as if mother was somewhere near them. But they wither on my hand, and hold down their heads, just as I want to do now my mother is dead."

Every object at home seemed to remind Willie of his mother, and keep his bereavement uppermost in his thoughts. He did not weep as much after a few weeks, but through all his boyhood there rested a sadness on his countenance, that indicated a mournful recollection of that dear mother. Through his whole life he felt that he was like a tender branch lopped from the parent-tree; like a lamb sent out from the fold while too young to meet the storms and travel the dangerous paths of which he often heard from his mother. This idea seemed ever present, and served many times to hold him back from adventurous pursuits and untried schemes. "I don't know—but I should have known had my dear mother lived," was the expression of his general course in life.

As long as he was a child he spoke often and tenderly of his mother. He cherished a remembrance of her faithful admonitions and precepts, as vivid as might have been expected from a child bereaved at the age of eight or ten. When older, he realized more fully his loss, especially when he met one whom he believed to be a good mother. He then seldom spoke of his mother; but his visits to the grave-yard, his sadness on the anniversary of the day of her death, his conversations about her with his brothers and sister, the value he attached to every token of her love to him, convinced us that he remembered her with deep affection.

When a young man, he was several times beguiled by the tempter into forbidden paths, and his eyes were not opened to behold the danger until the fangs of the serpent pierced deeply into his heart. Then most fully did he realize that he was poor motherless William; that he was abroad in the world without those most effectual safeguards against sin, a good mother's counsels and a mother's daily prayers; that while others could express unreservedly to their mothers their hopes or fears, their success or misfortune, their faithfulness in the hour of temptation or weakness under its power, and be counselled, encouraged, urged or entreated anew,—he could only go to his mother's grave and shed bitter tears of repentance in loneliness, or withdraw himself from all around him, and, a poor motherless child, call up the dim remembrance of that young and cheerful being who once called him her precious son, her treasured child,—and weep the more bitterly that no answering voice or smile, or look of encouragement or hope, met him in this sinful world!

Oh ye who have hearts to feel, who profess Christian principles to guide you, and the holy love of our Master for your example, seek out the motherless child of the poor, the ignorant, the vicious, and by the power of Christ which is within you, according to the measure of that power, strive to be like fond mothers to the thousands who cry "We have no dear mother—our mother is in heaven—is dead—and we know not what is right or what is wrong!" Help and pity them. Rescue them from that heart-breaking loneliness and sorrow that prey incessantly on the feelings of a sensitive, intelligent, motherless child.