Death of a Child

  LITTLE BESSIE
                    -Joe. E. Cornett

Hug me closer, Mother, closer, put your arms around me tight
For I’m cold and tired, Mother, and I feel so strange tonight.
Something hurts me, Mother, like a stone inside my chest,
And I wonder, Mother, why it is I cannot rest.

Today while you were working, as I lay upon my bed,
I was trying to be patient, and to think of what you said;
How Jesus loves His lambs to watch and keep;
O, I wish He’d come and take me – then in His arms I’d sleep

Just as the sun was setting, a heavenly Presence came;
My room was very quiet, then someone called my name:
O, how I wondered, who upon me smiled;
But I knew it was Jesus when He whispered, “Come, my child”.

“Come up here, my little Bessie, come here, and live with Me,
Where no children ever suffer throughout eternity.”
All at once, my window opened, in the fields were little sheep;
Some from a brook were drinking; others were peacefully asleep.

I looked into a world so very bright and fair;
Filled with other children, who seem so happy there.
There were little children singing: prettier songs I never heard.
The sound was more beautiful than the sweetest little bird.

At first I felt so sorry, Mother, but I knew I had to go.
And sure that when I left you, you’d be crying so.
Hug me closer, Mother, closer, put your arms around me tight,
O, how I love you, Mother….but I feel so strange tonight.

Then her mother hugged her closer, to her aching, burning breast,
Near a heart so close to breaking, was a child in need of rest.
In the quiet hour of midnight, in that silence calm and deep,
Lying on her mother’s bosom, Little Bessie fell asleep.

Today in a peaceful churchyard, there is a little mound,
And a child who was cherished, has been laid beneath the ground.
But up yonder in that city, that is shining bright and fair,
Little Bessie now is sheltered in our Savior’s loving care.

Maxim of the Moment

You can’t go forward looking backwards. - Tommy Barnett