Child mortality

"When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. If we receive news that a hundred thousand dollars had been left them by some one dying, we should be thrown into an ecstasy of rejoicing; but when they have gone home to God, we stand, and mourn, and pine, and wonder at the mystery of Providence."

"If someone who knew the future, pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives... could you then kill that child?"

"I find no evidence that the Greco-Roman pagan tradition ever regarded the sufferings of small children as so problematic that moral-philosophical treatises were devoted to this question. On the contrary, writers such as Cicero and Seneca criticize parents and especially fathers for grieving over the deaths of their small children. As I noted in the previous chapter, our sources do not give an unambiguous answer to the question whether parents did, in fact, grieve over their dead babies, but the fact that representatives of the intellectual elite express the view that small children are nor worth their parent’s grief tells us clearly what kinds of reaction were regarded as conventional. This means that the church fathers apparently had a different attitude to the worth of babies than that found in the pagan moral-philosophical tradition. Although our sources are not explicit on this point, it is reasonable to believe that this positive assessment of the worth of babies is connected with the idea that all human beings, even small children, are created in the image of God. Whereas pagans thought that a newborn baby was not a human person in the full sense, patristic thinking implies that the newborn possesses the fullness of human dignity. I quote Cyprian’s words once more: “For what is lacking to him who has once been formed in the womb by the hands of God?” (Ep. 64:.2). This means that the newborn has a soul and can receive the gifts of divine salvation, and that the church is the instrument that it to mediate these gifts even to the smallest children. The idea that babies are created in God’s image, and hence are the recipients of divine salvation, thus leads to a focus on babies and an interest in them that unknown in pagan antiquity."

"Better that the light cloud should fade away into heaven with the morning breath, than travail through the weary day to gather in darkness, and in storm."

"Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them."

"If you want to know what love is, have a child. If you want to know what pain is, bury him."

"The dying boy said: " Father, dont you weep for me; when I get to heaven I will go straight to Jesus and tell Him that ever since I can remember you have tried to lead me to Him." I would rather have my children say that of me after I am gone; or if they die before me, I would rather they should take that message to the Master than to have a monument over me reaching to the skies."

"Dearest wife, let us go on and faint not; something of ours is in heaven besides the flesh of our exalted Saviour, and we go on after our own."

"How can a mothers heart feel cold or weary Knowing her dearer self safe, sheltered, warm? How can she feel her road too dark or dreary, Who knows her treasure sheltered from the storm? How can she sin? Our hearts may be unheeding, Our God forgot, our holy saints defied; But can a mother hear her dead child pleading, And thrust those little angel hands aside?"

"Ye have lost a child — nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere."

"The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go If not, Ill smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go Oh! go down, Moses Away down to Egypts land And tell King Pharaoh To let my people go."

"While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!" Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong."