Influence of a Child's Death Upon His Mother
2 Kings 4:20
And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.


Princess Alice had just returned from her Italian trip, into which she had thrown herself with true enjoyment, and was still resting after the fatigue of the long journey. The two little princes had been playing by her sofa; Prince Ernest ran into the next room followed by the Princess, and in her brief absence Prince Fritz fell out of the window upon the stone pavement below. One moment in the most vivid radiant life and health, the next he lay senseless and crushed. He died a few hours later in his mother's arms. In her agony she sounded, as it were for the first time, the depths of scepticism. She searched in vain through the various systems of philosophy, but found no foothold. She did not speak of the transformation that was going on within; but slowly, silently, and surely faith returned to her, never again ¢o falter. "The whole edifice of philosophical conclusions which I had built up for myself, I find to have no foundation whatever — nothing of it is left — it has crumbled away like dust. What should we be, what would become of us if we had no faith — if we did not believe that there is a God who rules the world and each single one of us?"

(Miss Gladstone in "Contemporary Review.")



Parallel Verses
KJV: And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.

WEB: When he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon, and then died.




Death in Early Life
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