the last line of distinction the living can draw,-the proud homage which Pomp pays Death. Still, as we are all vassals to this great King, we think that something more of a grave and equal decorum ought to be observed towards the meanest subject that enters his silent dominions. Not in outward show alone, but something more of a sanctified respect towards their resting-places; not seeking to make such spots a ground of profit only (for surely that feeling ought to be buried with them), but to treat their remains as something that we may, in another form, meet again; for who can tell what amends may be made by treating the dead respectfully, or what power the Angel of Death possesses in that Great Court beyond the grave. They who believe not in a future state (and few are found who retain that doctrine at the last hour) can entertain no respect for the dead; memory with them is but a mockery, and their sympathy for the broken-hearted sorrowers, who mourn over the departed, rings but with hollow comfort. They snap the golden chain of our faith, and break asunder the only link that extends from earth to heaven, and "binds us every way about the feet of God;" they would leave Hope no anchor to lean upon: to plant a grave with flowers, or to erect a monument, would be at once like renouncing their unenviable belief.

We know there are no lack of well-meaning persons, who will argue that it is sheer folly to bestow a thought upon the dead; and that many wise and great men have expressed themselves indifferent as to what became of their bodies after death; yet we rarely meet with any amongst these who have ever been found guilty of treating the dead with disrespect, and our love for them whilst living, though clinging now only to the barren branches, is hallowed by the

are.

remembrance of what they were, and not what they now "He is not dead, but sleepeth," ought to be a warning, solemn enough to guard the lowliest grave from desecration. Are the remains of mother and father, husband and wife, son and daughter, relation and friend, such common commodities that when they have ceased to delight, and serve, and comfort, nay, even cross us, they are to be turned out and buried with no more ceremony, and no more feeling than? Nay, there is no comparison; we lose the bird that sang to us, and regret its loss; we miss the cat that sat and purred upon our knee; we talk affectionately of the dog that followed us faithfully so many years; the horse and ass live long in the memory of a kind-hearted master. No, there is no comparison; a ring, a chain, a book, a trifle, however small, according to the common value of worldly calculation, becomes inestimable to those who love the memory of the giver. We descend with them, like Aladdin with his wonderful lamp, into the earth, and they flash upon "the unsummed treasures of the deep."upon heaps of wealth that can only enrich the beholder. If trifles like these can awaken such powerful emotions in a sensitive mind, what must the heart feel when standing beside the grave of an object so beloved? No, we will not think so meanly of poor human nature, as to believe that any one living cares not for the dead, or sets no more store upon the two yards of common earth that covers the remains once dear to others, than he would upon the same space of ground in the wildest wold, or remotest moor. Although we know not where reigns that silence which was never broken by a human sob, nor can point out where the solitude dwells that has not echoed back a mortal sigh; though every yard of earth may, in former ages, have been

a grave, and not a flower blows without bearing in its root the doomed drops of Eden; still we covet not a loneliness in death and who living would not sooner share immortality with his greatest enemy, rather than enter it alone? Who would not rather be aroused by the sound of the last trumpet, and start up with the great army of the dead, than awake in the wilderness, where only the boom of the bittern could be heard? Who would wish to be the last man left upon a fast-sinking wreck, in the midst of a mastless-sea, and not wish that he was one of the drowned? The great poets, in the midst of all their mighty imaginings, when they portrayed the punishments of a future state, either forgot, or wilfully omitted solitude (as a state of existence too horrible to endure), and left modern times and modelprisons to work out and finish this refined cruelty, which even a dead man (if he could but feel) would dread.

Faith turns her bright eye to the sunny side of the grave-to a future state of existence abounding in neverending happiness-she sees but the eternal light in the distance, and bending all her energies thitherward, forgets her brief passage through the gloomy gateway of death. She knows that beyond those grim and forbidding barriers there stretches the delectable garden of heaven-that land of Paradise which far excels all we ever thought beautiful upon earth. Faith doubts not the written record of God, but trusting to that power which said-"Let there be light,”— and at whose bidding darkness was broken up, and rolled trembling away-believeth that when there she will never more be separated from those she loved; that in those nightless realms-"There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.(8)

(8) Revelations, chap. xxi.

We well know, "that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come;" and, without dwelling upon the "uncertain certainty," the preparation and continual expectation, which so many well-meaning people are continually dinning into the ears of the living, as if we were born for no other purpose than to die, we hold it necessary to look Death boldly in the face, and contemplate "this sea-mark of our utmost sail," not in fear and trembling only, but like brave men determined to "fight the good fight," and not ashamed to become captive to the Conqueror. Supposing that the space of life is limited from the very moment of our birth, and that the first minute which ushers us into existence commences the numbering of our days,—are we to live only for death? to close our eyes upon all that exists in this green and beautiful world, and keep them fixed only on the grave? Better at once turn hermits, and betake us to lonely cells. would this be if such were the case; why we might as well live and sleep in our coffins, or for ever sit upon the ground, "and tell sad tales about the death of kings." Was it for this that man was gifted with the mighty power of thought? that the grand unsculptured marble of the mind, which could shape its imaginings into an immortality as endurable as the earth, was called up like a gigantic shadow—a mere mockery-to fade away again at the touch of death? Was the golden sun of Shakspere sunk" deeper than ever plummet sounded," that he might make circles only on the sea of Time, never to be traced again after they had ceased to wash this mortal shore? If so, farewell to man's divinity.

What a life

No; there is a great mustering ground somewhere in the undiscovered regions beyond the grave, where we shall behold those god-like spirits, whose departing tread still

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shakes the earth, and in them see the chosen senators of heaven. Those mighty minds, God-breathed and Godbegot, if they do for ever perish-which we will not be lieve-must surely have mistaken their way, when they descended from heaven to inhabit their "fleshly tabernacles," or were sent as proofs that angels do sometimes visit us unaware. The very air is filled with their undying whispers, and if they spoke not "the great utterance of the Gods," they lisped an immortal language; they chartered the winds, and bade every breath that blew to proclaim to the listening ears of future ages, that they had gained a victory over death. They have left behind them lingerings of undying voices, stray notes which death could not silence; the golden gates of heaven could not close suddenly enough upon the sound of their "sweet harpings," without sending the gushing music back again to earth: what floats around us, is all that is left of their immortality. Let us, then, not envy heaven, nor wish to thin those holy ranks of its "ministering angels;" they were but mighty messengers beckoned back in mercy by the Most High, lest we should prostrate ourselves before His wondrous works, and in our idolatry forget the Maker.

But let us not blot out the traces of the foot-marks they have left behind. Who would not bow in homage to the dust of Homer? or wander weary leagues, if he could but discover where the forgotten ashes of those still illustrious

in memory repose? It is a Popish deed to lock up the monuments in Westminster Abbey from public view, and to compel the poor to pay for a sight of those "holy relics:" they forget that there are sermons in stones," which might benefit us. What right have they to demand money, and make a show of the graves of the mighty dead? Did the

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