agony, than the thought, that they are to sleep their 

 last sleep in the land of strangers, or in the unseen 

 depths of the ocean. 



" Bury me not, I pray thee," said the patriarch 

 Jacob, " bury me not 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 bu- 

 ried Isaac and Rebecca his wife ; and there I buried 

 Leah." 



Such are the natural expressions of human feeling, 

 as they fall from the lips of the dying. Such are the 

 reminiscences, that forever crowd on the confines of 

 the passes to the grave. We seek again to have our 

 home there with our friends, arid to be blest by a 

 communion with them. It is a matter of instinct, 

 not of reasoning. It is a spiritual impulse, which 

 supersedes belief, and disdains question. 



But it is not chiefly in regard to the feelings be- 

 longing to our own mortality, however sacred and 

 natural, that we should contemplate the establish- 

 ment of repositories of this sort. There are higher 

 moral purposes, and more affecting considerations, 

 which belong to the subject. We should accustom 

 ourselves to view them rather as means, than as 

 ends ; rather as influences to govern human conduct, 

 and to moderate human suffering, than as cares inci- 

 dent to a selfish foresight. 



It is to the living mourner — to the parent, weeping 

 over his dear dead child — to the husband, dwell- 

 ing in his own solitary desolation — to the widow, 



