"SHE HAD OUTLIVED HER USEFULNESS."

Nor long since, a good-looking man, in middle life, came to our door, asking for "the minister." When informed that he was out of town, he seemed disappointed and anxious. On being questioned as to his business, he replied, "I have lost my mother; and as this place used to be her home, and my father lies here, we have come to lay her beside him.”

Our heart rose in sympathy, and we said, "You have met with a great loss." "Well, yes," replied the strong man, with hesitancy; "a mother is a great loss in general; but our mother had outlived her usefulness. She was in her second childhood, and her mind was grown as weak as her body, so that she was no comfort to herself, and was a burden to everybody. There were seven of us sons and daughters; and as we could not find anybody who was willing to board her, we agreed to keep her among us a year about. But I've had more than my share of her; for she was too feeble to be moved when my time was out, and that was more than three months before her death. But then she was a good mother in her day, and toiled very hard to bring us all up."

Without looking at the face of the heartless man, we directed him to the house of a neighboring pastor, and returned to our nursery. We gazed on the merry little faces which smiled or

grew sad in imitation of ours--those little ones to whose ear no word in our language is half so sweet as "mother;" and we wondered if that day would ever come when they would say of us, "She has outlived her usefulness; she is no comfort to herself, and a burden to everybody else;" and we hoped that before such a day should dawn, we might be taken to our rest. God forbid that we should outlive the love of our childRather let us die while our hearts are a part of their own, that our grave may be watered with their tears, and our love linked with their hopes of heaven.

ren.

When the bell tolled for the mother's burial, we went to the sanctuary to pay our only token of respect to the aged stranger; for we felt that we could give her memory a tear, even though her own children had none to shed.

"She was a good mother in her day, and toiled hard to bring us all up!" "She was no comfort to herself, and a burden to everybody else!" These cruel, heartless words rang in our ears as we saw the coffin borne up the aisle. The bell tolled long and loud, until its iron tongue had chronicled the years of the toil-worn mother. One, two, three, four, five! How clearly, and almost merrily, each stroke told of her once peaceful slumber on her mother's bosom, and of her seat at nightfall on her weary father's knees. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten! rang out the tale of her sports upon the green sward, in the meadow and by the brook. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen! spoke more gravely of school days, and little household joys and cares. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen! sounded out the enraptured visions of maidenhood, and the dream of early love. Nineteen brought before us the happy

bride. Twenty spoke of the young mother, whose heart was full to bursting with the new strong love which God had awakened in her bosom. And then stroke after stroke told of her early womanhood—of the love, and cares, and hopes, and fears, and toils, through which she had passed during these long years, till fifty rang out harsh and loud. From that to sixty, told of the warm-hearted mother and grandmother, living over again her own joys and sorrows in those of her children. Every family of all the group wanted grandmother then, and the only strife was who should secure the prize. But, hark! the bell tolls on! Seventy, seventy-one, two, three, four! She begins to grow feeble, requires some care, is not always perfectly patient or satisfied; she goes from one child's house to another, so that no one place seems like home. She murmurs in plaintive tones, that after all her toil and weariness, it is hard she cannot be allowed a home to die in; that she must be sent, rather than invited, from house to house. Eighty, eighty-one, two, three, four! Ah! she is now a second child-now "she has outlived her usefulness; she has ceased to be a comfort to herself or anybody;" that is, she has ceased to be profitable to her earth-craving and money-grasping children.

Now sounds out, reverberating through our lovely forest, and echoing back from our "hill of the dead," eighty-nine! There she lies now in the coffin, cold and still. She makes no trouble now, demands no love, no soft words, no tender little offices. A look of patient endurance, we fancied also an expression of grief for unrequited love, sat on her marble features. Her children were there, clad in weeds of woe; and

in irony we remembered the strong man's words, “She was a good mother in her day."

When the bell ceased tolling, the strange minister rose in the pulpit. His form was very erect, and his voice strong, but his hair was silvery white. He read several passages of Scripture expressive of God's compassion to feeble man, and especially of his tenderness when gray hairs are on him, and his strength faileth. He then made some touching remarks on human frailty, and of dependence on God, urging all present to make their peace with their Maker while in health, that they might claim his promises when heart and flesh should fail them. "Then," said he, "the eternal God shall be thy refuge, and beneath thee shall be the everlasting arms." Leaning over the desk, and gazing intently on the coffined form before him, he then said reverently, "From a little child I have honored the aged; but never till gray hairs covered my own head did I know truly how much love and sympathy this class have a right to demand of their fellow-creatures. Now I feel it. Our mother," he added most tenderly, "who now lies in death before us, was a stranger to me, as are all these, her descendants. All I know of her is what her son told me to-day-that she was brought to this town from afar, sixtynine years ago, a happy bride; that here she passed most of her life, toiling, as only mothers ever have strength to toil, until she had reared a large family of sons and daughters; that she left her home here clad in the weeds of widowhood, to dwell among her children; and that till health and vigor left her, she lived for you her descendants.

"You, who together have shared her love and her care,

know how well you have requited her. God forbid that conscience should accuse any of you of ingratitude or murmuring on account of the care she has been to you of late. When you go back to your homes, be careful of your words and your example before your children, for the fruit of your own doing you will surely reap from them when you yourselves totter on the brink of the grave.

"I entreat you as a friend--as one who has himself entered the 'evening of life'-that you may never say, in the presence of your families, nor of Heaven, 'our mother had outlived her usefulness-she was a burden to us.' Never! Never! A mother cannot live so long as that! No; when she can no longer labor for her children, nor yet take care of herself, she can fall like a precious weight upon their bosoms, and call forth by her helplessness all the noble, generous feelings of

their natures.

"Adieu, then, poor toil-worn mother; there are no more sleepless nights, no more days of pain for thee. Undying vigor and everlasting usefulness are part of the inheritance of the redeemed. Feeble as thou wert on earth, thou wilt be no burden on the bosom of Infinite Love; but there thou shalt find thy longed-for rest, and receive glorious sympathy from Jesus and his ransomed fold."