1876 quote about the agony of having a missing child

"[The disappearances of children] are stories of bereavements sharper than death. The sorrow of a fixed and
finished calamity abates with time; the sorrow of suspense grows intenser the longer it endures. . .The loss of
a child by the hand of man involves treachery and cruelty, the despair of the family , the misery of the child,
its rearing in crime and shame for ruin, or -- less wretched fate -- early death. . .[Yet the child] is not
forgotten in the heart of infinite love; not unwatched by the veil that never sleeps. The hand that has
spread the veil will lift it."



C. P. Krauth, introduction to Charley Ross, the Kidnapped Child (1876)
As quoted in preface to The Vanished Child, Smith, Susan, NY: Ballantine Books, 1992