More to disburden a throbbing and full heart than to communicate much good, I write to you. I know you will feel a pang when I tell you that this afternoon, at 3 o’clock, God was pleased to take away my little Archibald – our Benjamin, the son of our hopes. Blessed be God for all His mercies! Last evening he was as well as a child could be, to all appearance. About 7 he began to show symptoms of croup, which gradually advanced, in spite of the most vigorous practice of our physician, who was with us almost from first to last until he died in our arms. His last moments were sweet; he simply fell asleep: no pang, no distortion. He lies like a lovely smiling marble. He was two years, four months old. Twenty hours’ illness! A little before his death he clasped his hands and said, “I want to say my prayers”.
Judge how I feel. My dear friend, the tears I poured in torrents over his dying form were tears of joy – blessed be God for it! Never had I such faith of immortality. My wife and I yield with a composure for which we can never be thankful enough, till the resumption of the precious gift. We have been in the practice of deliberately giving up our children to God, every day. O how I rejoiced in this, as I felt his last pulses and found his precious hand turning to clay in mine.
We have too much caressed and prized this dear boy. Disappointed in our first, whom we held by a spider’s thread, we counted much upon Archibald. He was lovely and precocious. In a moment we are blasted! But why do I repeat these things? Join us in giving thanks to God for the wonderful comfort we have (I will not say resignation). Join us in praising Him who can make us glory in tribulations also. Join us in prayer that we may be kept in faith. “Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.”
I wish to learn the lesson of this dispensation. I wish to be more entirely consecrated to the work of God. If God write us childless (an awful word now – once it seemed a trifle) I will try to find children in the Sabbath school. O my friend, I have a dear child in heaven! Only a few hours in heaven! Is not this is an honour, a joy, a triumph? Let me then make up my mind to lead a heavenly life here. When shall we “use this world as not abusing it”? When shall we who have wives live as though we had none? A little while and all these shadows will flee away, and we shall find ourselves amidst the realities of eternity. For some time previous to this dispensation, I have found myself being led to thoughts more serious than common, greater desires to cut off superfluous pursuits, to take up unaccustomed crosses, and to cultivate humble love. Alas, how little have I succeeded in doing so.
I cannot well say much on other topics. Remember me and mine at the throne of grace.
1Taken from Forty Years’ Familiar Letters of James W Alexander. This letter, dated 15 December 1834, illustrates what God’s grace can do even in the sorest and most sudden of bereavements.