388 Reflections ly a Resident of the Hill Side. [August, 



beneath the sod; and as the eye instinctively surveyed the mighty 

 field of mementoes, that they once had life like ourselves, the re- 

 flection came upon us, and to ourself asked the question in silence, 

 must these obelisks, these tomb-stones, these monuments, placed 

 here at such immense cost, crumble and decay? And must these 

 friends of ours beneath, like the soft notes of departed muiiic, be for- 

 gotten? Alas! it is indeed, too true, they must. Examples teach 

 us this from the birth of Christ to the present day. 



Let the eye but trace down the galleries of sacred history and 

 behold the immortal men of God that have gone down to the grave; 

 and what do we know of them more than they lived and that they died! 

 Where they lie there is no monument or stone to mark the spot. 

 We shall go, and others will follow after. 



This plain, and these surrounding hills^ will re-echo with the silvery 

 laughter of other voices, and by other footsteps will be trod; but the 

 tendency of everything that is of earth, animate and inanimate, is to 

 perish and decay. There is no immunity for high birth, nor desert 

 in service, from the common lot. The proudest and most costly 

 monument, and humblest tomb-stone, alike partake of the general 

 doom. 



As we rambled among the "storied urns" that recorded the de- 

 parture of the living, we could not but muse on the thoughtlessness of 

 man. Amidst the infinite and multifarious diversity of humaa 

 pursuits, and business, in the great drama of life, how seldom do we 

 think of death and the grave! "Death lurks in ambush along e\ery 

 path;" and none can be exempt from his icy embrace. Since, then, 

 there is no loophole of retreat, it is best that it should be often 

 thought of, so that when the time does arrive, it may lose some of its 

 terrors. 



After making our horse secure, we left the avenues to roam over 

 the more secluded spots; to see who had taken up their abodes here 

 with retiring modesty, and in search of names that might have gone 

 out of recollection. Innumerable instances soon presented themselves, 

 that a '■'■good mans memory did not outlive him half a year.'' 



The first grave that seriously attracted our attention was that of a 

 lady, who, several years in life, had been our immediate neighbor. She 

 was a woman of most noble impulses, and deserving more than a passing 

 notice. Her husband had died some years before her, and left four 

 children in the charge, and under the maternal care of as kind a 

 mother as the world ever saw. Her ambition was to keep her children 

 above the suspicion of want, and to this end strained every nerve of a 



