Dearly beloved, you can look back to a day in your history over which no cloud lowered, when you wore the bridal wreath, and stood at the sacred altar, and laid your hand in a hand faithful and true, and pledged vows of love, and when hope smiled on all your future path; but who have lived to see all you then deemed most precious, laid beneath the clods of the valley, and have exchanged buds of orange for the most intensely sable of earthly weeds; you who once walked on your earthly journey in sweet companionship which brightened your days; who were wont to lay your weary head every night on the faithful "pillowing breast," and there forget your woes and cares, but who are now _alone_; you who trusted in manly counsel and guidance for your little ones, but who now shed bitter, unavailing tears in every emergency which reminds you that they are fatherless; and, worse than all, you who had all your wants supplied by the loving, toiling husband and father, but have now to contend single-handed with poverty,--come, sorrowing, widowed hearts, visit with us Horeb's holy mound. It is, indeed, a barren spot; nevertheless, it has blossoms of loveliness for you. Come in faith, and perchance the prophet's vision shall be yours--peradventure, the "still, small voice" which bade to rest the turmoil of his soul, shall soothe your griefs also; the words which are heard from its summit as Jehovah gives to Moses his directions, have indeed to do with "meats and drinks and divers washings," yet, if you listen intently, you will now and then hear those which, as the expression of your Heavenly Father's heart, will amply repay the toil of the ascent. Draw near and hearken: "Ye shall not afflict any widow nor fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, your children fatherless." Will you not now be comforted? "The Eternal makes your sorrows his own," and Himself stands forth as your protector against every ill. "When thou cuttest down thy harvest in thy field, and hast forgotten the sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it, but it shall be for the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thy hands."