In what world was I living when a man (calling himself a man of God) could stand up publicly and give God "hearty thanks" that he had taken away my sister? But, young child, understand--taken her away from the miseries of this sinful world. Oh yes! I hear what you say; I understand _that_; but that makes no difference at all. She being gone, this world doubtless (as you say) is a world of unhappiness. But for me _ubi Caesar, ibi Roma_--where my sister was, there was paradise; no matter whether in heaven above, or on the earth beneath. And he had taken her away, cruel priest! of his "_great_ mercy?" I did not presume, child though I was, to think rebelliously against _that_. The reason was not any hypocritical or canting submission where my heart yielded none, but because already my deep musing intellect had perceived a mystery and a labyrinth in the economies of this world. God, I saw, moved not as _we_ moved--walked not as _we_ walked--thought not as _we_ think. Still I saw no mercy to myself, a poor frail dependent creature--torn away so suddenly from the prop on which altogether it depended. Oh yes! perhaps there was; and many years after I came to suspect it. Nevertheless it was a benignity that pointed far a-head; such as by a child could not have been perceived, because then the great arch had not come round; could not have been recognized if it _had_ come round; could not have been valued if it had even been dimly recognized. Finally, as the closing prayer in the whole service stood, this--which I acknowledged then, and now acknowledge, as equally beautiful and consolatory; for in this was no harsh peremptory challenge to the infirmities of human grief as to a thing not meriting notice in a religious rite. On the contrary, there was a gracious condescension from the great apostle to grief, as to a passion that he might perhaps himself have participated. "Oh, merciful God! the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, in whom whosoever believeth shall live, though he die; who also taught us by his holy apostle St Paul not to be sorry, as men without hope, for them that sleep in _him_; WE meekly beseech thee, O Father! to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; that, when we shall depart this life, we may rest in _him_ as our hope is--that this our sister doth."