THOUGHTS BORN OF A CARESS."O, WHAT a nice place to cry!" said a laughing little girl, as she nestled her head lovingly on her mother's breast. The words were spoken playfully, and the little fairy was all unconscious how much meaning lay hid in them; but they brought the tears to my eyes, for I looked forward to the time when care and trial should throw their shadows over that laughing face,—when adversity should overpower,—when summer friends should fall off like autumn leaves before the rough blast of misfortune,—when the faithful breast she leaned upon should be no longer warm with love and life,—when, in all the wide earth, there should be for that little one "no nice place to cry." God shield the motherless! A father may be left,—kind, affectionate, considerate, perhaps,—but a man's affections form but
a small fraction of his existence. His thoughts are far away, even while his child clambers on his knee. The distant ship
with its rich freight, the state of the money-market, the fluctuations of trade, the office, the shop, the bench; and he answers
at random the little
lisping immortal, and gives the child a toy, and passes on. The little, sensitive heart has borne its childish griefs through the day unshared. She don't understand the reason for anything, and nobody stops to tell her. Nurse "don't know," the cook is "busy," and so she wanders restlessly about, through poor mamma's empty room. Something is wanting. Ah, there is no "nice place to cry!" Childhood passes; blooming maidenhood comes on; lovers woo; the mother's quick instinct, timely word of caution, and omnipresent watchfulness, are not there. She gives her heart, with all its yearning sympathies, into unworthy keeping. A fleeting honeymoon, then the dawning of a long day of misery; wearisome days of sickness; the feeble moan of the first-born; no mother's arm in which to place, with girlish pride, the little wailing stranger; lover and friend afar; no "nice place to cry!" Thank God!—not unheard by Him, who "wipeth all tears away," goeth up that troubled heart-plaint from the despairing lips of the motherless! |