Providential bereavements are sad scenes in life, for the scythe of death stops not to ask if they be sweet and precious to some fond wife, or mother, or brother, who knows? whom their heart chose. On! on! he pursues his desolating work, amid their sighs, their cries, and tears. But beloved, there is no tearing of heart from heart in Heaven. There is no death there; there is no sorrow there; there is no sin there. I often think of the words of the Apostle as peculiarly appropriate to us in the hour of sad bereavement: "These light afflictions are but for a moment, but they work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." I have had persons tell me when God has suddenly removed loved ones from their midst, that God had forsaken them, that He had forgotten to be gracious. But ah, to such let me say that the Lord loveth whom He chasteneth. God is love. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. But what is the object God has in view in thus breaking the family circle by death? It is that our attention may be attracted to the saints above, and that we may by faith behold the beauties of the Celestial city. You know, David says, "It was good for me that I was afflicted; before I was afflicted, I went astray." We not unfrequently forget that this is not our home. But that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. God has to put us in remembrance of it. Beautiful as this world is, there is a fairer and brighter, and infinitely more lovely world above our heads. Lovely as human friendships and fellowships are here below, what are they in comparison to the felicitous condition of society in heaven? "I would not live alway, I ask not to stay, Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way." There are no estranged feelings in heaven. There are no misunderstandings there. No sickness there. All, all is peace and joy and love! Our faith in God, and in the existence of Heaven, and the possibilities of the future life, can enable us to triumph over the trials and bereavements in this vale of tears. Dr. Guthrie asks: "Why should we not lie as calmly in the arms of God's Providence, as we lay in infancy on a mother's breast? Having an ever-living, an everlasting, an ever-loving Father in God, how may we welcome _all_ providences, sweetly submissive to the will of God. Shall it not fare with us as with the pliant reeds that love the hollows and fringe the margin of the lake, and bending to the blast, _not resisting it_, raise their heads anew, unharmed by the storm that has snapped the mountain's pine and rent the hearts of oaks asunder." "All things work together for good to them that love God; them who are the called according to His purpose."