Personal Trials
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large, and our home like a hotel, and we from that home much of the
time. I had felt the deepest anxiety that my children should be brought
up free from evil habits, and I was often grieved as I thought of the
contrast between my situation and that of others who would not take
burdens and cares, who could ever be with their children, to counsel
and instruct them, and who spent their time almost exclusively in their
own families. And I have inquired: Does God require so much of us,
and leave others without burdens? Is this equality? Are we to be thus
hurried on from one care to another, one part of the work to another,
and have but little time to bring up our children?
Loss of Children
In 1860 death stepped over our threshold, and broke the youngest
branch of our family tree. Little Herbert, born September 20, 1860,
died December 14 of the same year. When that tender branch was
broken, how our hearts did bleed none may know but those who have
followed their little ones of promise to the grave.
But oh, when our noble Henry died, [
The death of Henry N.
White occurred at Topsham, Maine, December 8, 1863.
] At the age of
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sixteen,—when our sweet singer was borne to the grave, and we no
more heard his early song,—ours was a lonely home. Both parents and
the two remaining sons felt the blow most keenly. But God comforted
us in our bereavements, and with faith and courage we pressed forward
in the work He had given us, in bright hope of meeting our children
who had been torn from us by death, in that world where sickness and
death will never come.
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