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kings. Neither the place where they lie, nor the scenery which surrounds their lowly habitation, can in the least affect their secure and dreamless repose. It is strictly but coldly true that

"There's not a dungeon slave, that 's buried
In the highway, unshrouded and uncoffined,
But lies as soft and sleeps as sound"

as any royal tenant of the Pyramids, or any much loved form on whose grave affection rears the earliest and most lovely flowers. The dead are beyond the reach of all earthly associations and all kind offices from survivors; and we do nothing in contradiction of this admitted truth when we choose out with care, and adorn with becoming mementoes of affection, their silent resting place. The tribute we pay to the dead is the tribute of affectionate remembrance; it is the offering of a bereaved and sympathetic heart, which nature prompts and which religion does not forbid; and in the very act of bestowing which, our own hearts may be made purer and better.

The influence upon the living, of a proper disposition of the dead, is in all respects most happy. When the place of their rest is rendered pleasant and attractive by the hand of correct and chastened taste, the thoughts of friends will often wander thither and gather around the once loved form reviving recollections of departed worth, beanty and affection, without the sorrow and gloom which too often accompany thoughts of the dead and of the grave. Nor will the spot be without interest even to the stranger. There is with the living a regard for the dead, and a thoughtfulness respecting death, which makes the place where they lie sacred to meditation; and when properly chosen and adorned, a favorite retreat for sober and pensive reflection. The influence of a walk in such a place is of salutary tendency. It serves to soften the general tone of feeling, to quench the fire of passion, to moderate the aspirations of ambition, to dispel the illusions of hope, to allay vanity and frivolity, to admonish of the shortness of time and the reality and nearness of eternity; in a word, to give to life its true and awful significance, and open the heart to the persuasive voice which, at such a time, come in upon us from the world of spirits. It makes the living feel that they must

die. The place itself, above all others, gives a force to this truth which is fitted to leave in every heart a valuable impression.

Nor are lessons of wisdom and religion, at such a time. and place, gleaned alone from our silent meditations. In a well-ordered cemetery, where the monuments and inscriptions are appropriate, we read from the sculptured marble many an impressive text, many a tender and powerful admonition. We are told of the shortness of life, of hopes suddenly blasted, of beauty withered in the time of its early bloom, of usefulness prematurely cut short, of strength and greatness suddenly laid low. Every thing we see, from the broken column, to the simplest or most elaborate inscription, tells us of the inevitable lot of man, and says, "be ye also ready."

There is no sentiment more native to the human heart than the desire that the friends we lay in the grave may rest secure and inviolate. The bare thought of their being disturbed, or their once lovely and expressive features being marred by any power but that of natural and appointed decay, is a wound inflicted on our affections. All this happens in accordance with a universal law of our nature, and in spite of the cold and rigorous teachings of demonstrative philosophy.

Nor can we be indifferent as to the disposition of our own mortal remains, when the spirit which now actuates them shall have left them to their natural dissolution. No one, under the influence of natural feelings, can look forward to the scene of his last sickness and death, without an anxious longing that friendship, tender and affectionate, may watch around his dying pillow, and perform the last sad offices to that which death shall leave behind. The voice operating is here the voice of nature and of experience.

"On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires."

"Bury me not, I pray thee," said the patriarch Jacob, "in Egypt; but I will lie with my fathers; and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their

burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife, and there I buried Leah." And thus do we all love to think, that in their last long sleep, our bodies may lie in close connection with kindred dust, as though that which was dear to us in life would be precious to us in the grave. And this, as it seems to us, is one of the pleasantest thoughts connected with rural cemeteries,--that provision is made that those whom affection and sympathy grouped together in life may sleep in a family group in death. Delightful, yet affecting, is it to look upon the graves of a household, all within the same small enclosure, awaiting together the morning of the resurrection.

All the appendages of the place where the dead are to rest should be simple, chaste, unostentatious, and yet free from all marks of negligence and rudeness. Every thing should be such as shall remind the visitor that not the glare and glitter of life, but the stillness and solemnity of death, are there; that the associations of the place are with human mortality, with eternity, and with God; that the living are expected to come hither, not in idle curiosity, or for vain amusements, but to indulge in sober and devout meditation. All should be fitted to make the spot appear as the threshhold of the world of spirits, the gateway to the retributions of eternity. And to this end, art must call to her assistance the unequalled and ever ready hand of nature. The works of the Almighty must join with those of man to give to the scene appropriateness and perfection. The spot must be well chosen; seclusion should be one of its attributes; and there must be trees and verdure and fragrance, no less than the chiselled marble and the significant inscription. The shade of a grove and the bloom of humble flowers are among the most desirable accompaniments. All this is demanded by a sentiment which lies deep in the human soul, that the thought of man's mortality is appropriately joined with the perpetual and oft renewed life and bloom of nature. Man dies and wastes away: his body is given to inevita

*[Sometimes great want of taste is manifested in the floral decorations of rural cemeteries. In the cemetery at Taunton, Mass., in the summer of 1847, a flaunting dahlia was to be seen, flourishing over the grave of a young wife, who had died at the age of 21! ED.]

VOL. XIII.-NO. XLIX.

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ble dissolution; but the grove stands, the tree lives, and the flower fades in autumn to bloom again in the spring. And thus do we all delight to think of friends that are gone. They are dead, but still they live. They have put off their mortal part to put on immortality; and if united to the Saviour by faith, their life is hid with him in God, so that when he shall appear they shall also appear with him in glory. And of this immortality, and of the future restoration of the bloom and beauty of which death has deprived us, in the removal of dear and valued friends, ever reviving nature, and the annual unfolding of its flowers, is an emblem too striking and too grateful to be overlooked; and they help us, the tree, the green grass, the bursting bud and opening flower, to take to our hearts the exquisite sentiment of poetry, that

"On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

In all ages, men have been fond of investing the place of the dead with the shade of trees and the fragrance of flowers. The aboriginal Germans are said to have buried their dead in groves, consecrated by their priests.* The ancient Hebrews, except in the case of their kings, in which there was a poor attempt to honor royalty, preferred for their last resting place the retired garden, where the foliage of spreading trees threw coolness and seclusion on their graves. The ancient Greeks and Romans chose the shady grove, and were accustomed to strew the graves with flowers. And in Germany, at the present day, the community of Moravian Brothers, that little band in whom nature and Christianity live in delightful union, and perhaps in unequalled purity and loveliness, form their places of burial into gardens, to which, in their simple and beautiful faith, they give the name of "Fields of Peace." In like manner many of the Catholic churchyards in Germany are distinguished for their pleasing appearance; and there is the affectionate practice of covering the grave with a bed of flowers which the friends of the silent sleeper water from a fountain dug for the sacred

* Judge Story's address at the consecration of Mount Auburn. † Jahn's Archeology.

purpose.* And such, we are told, is the tender sympathy of the living for the dead in Switzerland, and also in Wales, that either on the anniversary of their death, or other memorable occasions, the people revert to the graves of departed friends and strew them with fresh and fragrant flowers.† And in what beautiful harmony with the tender promptings of affection is such a simple custom. It is poetry, but it is also nature, which says,

"Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed
A crown for the brow of the early dead;

For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst;
For this in the wood was the violet nursed;

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are love's last gift,-bring flowers, pale flowers."

Though the early Christians repudiated the custom of crowning the dead body and the coffin with garlands, because they feared it would savor of idolatry, they yet so far obeyed the dictates of nature and kindly feelings as to strew flowers on the grave.

The history of the various methods of disposing of the dead, in different ages and countries, suggests the inquiry whether any one of these different practices is more suitable than any or all others. In ancient times, the bodies were sometimes buried in the earth; sometimes they were burned, and the ashes were gathered into urns, which were carefully deposited in the ground; and sometimes they were laid in tombs, either embalmed for long preservation, or left to the natural progress of decay. The practice of burning, which seems never to have been universal among any people, but which was not uncommon in Greece and Rome, passed away under the infiuence of Christianity, and will doubtless never be restored. In itself it seems extremely unnatural; and neither the false philosophy, nor the fear of insult from enemies, to which it owed its origin, will doubtless ever again impel the human mind to a practice so opposed to all the dictates of refined and tender affection. The practice of building tombs is not yet extinct, though it is believed to be rapidly giving place to the more simple and rational

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