My grand-father went to the grave
first, but he died in a good old age; and though we mourned to lose him
whom we had all loved so much, we could not help feeling that it was a
happy change for him, as he could hardly see or hear. Next to him, my
poor little brother Tom fell ill of the typhus fever, and God took him
to heaven in the budding of his child-hood. Only a year or two ago, my
father gave me his dying blessing, and was then a very old man. My
mother now survives, though very old; and my two sisters, Mary and
Elizabeth, who were then lively girls, are living, and are the mothers
of families. My brother John, a middle-aged man, is the Captain of a
ship, being now far away on a voyage; and he has left behind him a wife
and two boys, the youngest of whom is as old as he was at the time I
have spoken of. I am almost an old woman; though on these happy evenings
that I was speaking of, I was the youngest but one.
You, my little friends, will, perhaps, some day have to look back upon
such changes as I have seen. The thought that they will come upon you
need not make you sad, but it should make you good, and cause you to
resolve to do your duty and to serve God.
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