whose heart is broken by untimely sorrow — to the 

 friend, who misses at every turn the presence of some 

 kindred spirit — It is to these, that the repositories 

 of the dead bring home thoughts full of admonition, 

 of instruction, and, slowly but surely, of consolation 

 also. They admonish us, by their very silence, of our 

 own frail and transitory being. They instruct us in 

 the true value of life, and in its noble purposes, its 

 duties, and its destination. They spread around us, 

 in the reminiscences of the past, sources of pleasing, 

 though melancholy reflection. 



We dwell with pious fondness on the characters and 

 virtues of the departed ; and, as time interposes its 

 growing distances between us and them, we gather 

 up, with more solicitude, the broken fragments of 

 memory, and weave, as it were, into our very hearts, 

 the threads of their history. As we sit down by 

 their graves, we seem to hear the tones of their af- 

 fection, whispering in our ears. We listen to the 

 voice of their wisdom, speaking in the depths of our 

 souls. We shed our tears ; but they fare no longer 

 the burning tears of agony. They relieve our droop- 

 ing spirits, and come no longer over us with a death- 

 ly faintness. We return to the world, and we feel 

 ourselves purer, and better, and wiser, from this com- 

 munion with the dead. 



I have spoken but of feelings and associations com- 

 mon to all ages, and all generations of men — to the 

 rude and the polished — to the barbarian and the civ- 

 ilized — to the bond and the free — to the inhabitant 

 of the dreary forests of the north, and the sultry re- 



