A Voice from Jerusalem: Or, A Sketch of the Travels and Ministry of Elder Orson HydeHyde, Orson
Religion
A Voice from Jerusalem: Or, A Sketch of the Travels and Ministry of Elder Orson Hyde
Hyde, Orson
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Missions; Jerusalem -- Description and travel; Middle East -- Description and travel
There, for instance, sits a brother looking steadily upon his little
daughter. His melancholy mien bespeaks a heart wadeing deep in sorrow:
he puts his handkerchief to his face and bursts into tears. I ask the
cause of that; and am told, that that brother has lately lost his wife;
and as he looked upon the young and tender flower, and recognised in
her the kind and affectionate features of the companion of his youth
who now sleeps in the arms of death, he immediately contrasted all her
virtues with every unkind word that he might have given her, and every
ungenerous action; and the thought that his children are bereft of a
mother, and his own bosom of its dearest friend, swells his heart to a
burst of grief; and every unkind word which he might have given her in
the warmth of the moment, now rushes upon his memory, pierces his soul,
and adds an additional pang to the flood of grief which overwhelms
him. "Husbands," whoever you are, "love your wives, and be not bitter
against them." The delicacy of their sex, the vivid perceptibility
of their mind, and the soft and engaging virtues of their heart,
which weave themselves into the rugged recesses of man's masculine
temperament and constitute him a fit member of society, render them
entitled to the warmest affections of your heart, and to the generous
protection of your arm.
In another part sits a sister clad in deep mourning, with a number
of little children about her. The solemnity which sits upon the
countenance, and the sad melancholy which lingers in her eyes, declare
that her mourning is not all on the outside. She looks upon the little
ones and beholds in them the generous and manly features of their sire,
but his place his vacant: And pray, where is he? Oh! as the sturdy oak
of the forest is laid low by the shaft from heaven, so has their dear
father fallen by an arrow from the bow of a strong archer, and these
young and tender branches which have sprung forth from his roots, only
are left to perpetuate his name. None but God knows the anguish of that
sister's heart, as she hides her face, and pours forth her grief in
flowing streams of tearful eloquence. But stay, my hand, open not those
wounds afresh when thou hast no balm to bind them up: but may the Lord,
whose province it is to comfort all that mourn, and to bind up the
broken-hearted, soothe the sorrows of those afflicted ones, and pour
the oil of consolation into their grieved and wounded spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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