THERE was silence in Heaven. The song, that had echoed in strains of such entrancing sweetness around the throne of the Eternal, was for a moment hushed. There was no sound in Paradise, save when the golden lyre of some glorified spirit thrilled faintly, and sent forth a low, melodious note, as if unwilling to cease its musical breathings.
The hosts of the better land myriads of angels and archangels knelt humble around the " Great I Am" with their pinions folded and their heads bowed in reverence to Him at whose command a holy stillness now reigned throughout the spirit-world.
A vast, aye, and a glorious assemblage was that ; yet one white-robed form, that was wont to mingle in the throng, was absent ; a divine commission had been given him, and now he winged his way to the world below. Eagerly the angel bands watched him as he sped far, far on his earthward flight ; and when at length he paused above a scene of wretchedness, and a harp-note of celestial sweetness came faintly to their ears, they cast their fadeless diadems at the feet of the Infinite, and cried, " Hallelujah to the Lamb who has saved us, and still continueth to save."
To the sad and the sorrowing, to the guilty and erring of earth, had God sent the messenger of mercy ; and when the music of his song floated to the realms above, he paused above a low couch, on which reclined a dying boy. A bright-haired lad he was, who had beheld the storms and sunshine of only ten short years. He had been gay and joyous, as childhood everis ; but now the light of his sunny eye had grown dim, and his merry laugh went forth no more on the summer air. There was a feverish flush on his rounded cheek, and his full lips were parched with the burning breath of disease. Beside him stood a pale, sad woman his mother his widowed mother. There was an expression of intense suffering on her face, and the tears gushed to her eyes when she smoothed back the golden ringlets from his brow ; nearer and nearer still drew the heavensent messenger, and more intently gazed he on the form, in which, like a pent-up -bird, the soul was panting to be free. At length the lad's eye brightened ; a rich crimson flushed his cheek, and the small hand, clasped in the mother's, trembled convulsively, as thus he spoke :" I see the seraph, mother ! let me --O, let me go ! " and the voice died away like the low thrill of a lute-tone ---the eyelids dropped lovingly over those calm, pure orbs the crimson faded from the cheek --the boy had heard the angel's whisper, and the mother sat alone with
the dead.
Hours went by; midnight brooded o'er the earth, and the stars, like spirit's eyes, looked down upon the widow's home. Beside her boy the mother knelt, with her hands clinched across her motionless breast, and her cheek pressed to his, as if to warm it into life ; but no mother's power could wake the dead.
Still clasped the mother to her boy ; but the wild and unnatural light in her eye too plainly told that grief was struggling, for the mastery of reason.The spirit came near softly he struck one cnord of his celestial lyre, then mingled a low whisper with the thrilling strain. Suddenly a smile came o'er the face of the widow ; she clasped the corpse of her son more nervously a slight tremor convulsed her limbs she had heard the angel's whisper instantly her soul was with him over whom she had mourned.
