The Chamber of Death Irradiated

A selection from a letter by Rev. J. H. Thornwell, to Rev. John F. Lannean, of Salem, Virginia, who had recently lost a son in death. Mr. Thornwell could sympathize with him, for he had lost his own daughter. The letter was written on January 30, 1860.

It would be monstrous ingratitude to talk of grief in a case like this. There may be, and there must be, the pang of separation; there may and there must be those tears of nature, which testify to a father’s interest, and a father’s love; but anything that deserves to be called grief, must not enter where God and Christ are so gloriously present, and where the chamber of death is irradiated with the light, and joy, and blessedness of the eternal city.

The Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell, first published in 1875, republished by the Banner of Truth, 1974, pp. 444-45.