Indians, (which the piety of their families preserve with an anxiety so touching,) around which are seen to flourish the most beautiful and precious shrubs and flowers, or near to which numerous fountains refresh and purify the air: and, comparing these buryingplaces with the objects before me, I could not but confess, that the reproach of barbarism appeared in this case at least to be unjustly applied."

Thus

writer.

argues this infidel His reason conduct

ed him rightly to a certain point; but it was unable to lead him into that true light whereby all difficulties of this nature are solved, or to teach him, that it is the total absence of a truly Christian hope which leads the mourner to cling to the dust of a departed friend, endeavouring to find consolation in those useless ceremonies and vain observances, which every Christian considers as

being nearly allied to impiety; since the highest hopes of the Christian are advanced by death.

Every sincere believer in Christ considers the dissolution of the material part of man, as the forerunner of his resurrection, fully assured that the body of the saint, though plunged into the depths of the sea, or scattered to the four winds, is still safe in the keeping of his omnipresent Saviour;

and

divinely

persuaded,

though worms destroy his body, that he shall yet joyfully behold his Redeemer in the flesh, and be finally satisfied on awaking up in the divine likeness.

Accordingly, where true piety prevails, there the pomp of external woe, the emplumed hearse, the sable train of mourners, the ostentatious epitaph, the magnificent tomb, and the marble mausoleum, become mat

ters of trifling importance. Nor can it possibly be otherwise, since he who entertains a solid hope that the Saviour is gone down to the dust with the remains of his beloved friend, will naturally discover a noble unconcern about every outward distinction that can be paid to his body, requiring only that it should be placed in a situation of decent obscurity, until the work of dissolution be wholly completed.

B