> PROLEGOMENA. XCl. 



and happy people. There is a gloom, a dreari- 

 ness, a doubt, about a dank protestant cemetery, 

 which at once saturates the mind with deep 

 desponding melancholy, wholly ineffable in words; 

 and it must have been in the dank atmosphere of 

 some such charnelhouse that Hope escaped from 

 the box of Pandora. If there be a place on earth 

 in which we should forget the persecutions of the 

 heretics against us, and wash out the recollection 

 of their injuries with tears of compassion, it is 

 surely in their churchyards ! Here are deposited 

 the ashes of the dearest relatives, without a single 

 prayer for their souls in purgatory, or a re- 

 collection of the com.munity and intercourse of 

 the sanctified in heaven, with those still left on 

 the earth, in a state of probation : and the closest 

 ties of kindred seem to be burst for ever asunder ! 

 The scrawl of the lapidary perhaps vaunts 

 qualities which vanity affected, and of which time 

 now shows the delusion, grass covers the sod, 

 the cypress and the yew tree shade the urn, and 

 the entombed is in time forgotten I Is this the end 

 of religion ? Is this the place to exclaim — Oh 

 grave where is thy victory ? Oh death where is 

 thy sting ? Might we not rather point to one of 

 these depositories, and say — Behold where heresy 

 has converted the sting of death into a poisoned 

 arrow, and made the victory of the grave 

 complete ! 



