CONSECRATION SERVICES. 83 



Decay ! decay ! 'tis stamped on all ; 



All bloom in flower and flesh shall fade : 

 Ye whispering trees, when we shall fall, 



Be our long sleep beneath your shade ! 



Here to thy bosom, mother Earth, 



Take back in peace what thou hast given ; 



And all that is of heavenly birth, 

 O God, in peace, recall to heaven ! 



4. Address, by the Hon. Joseph Story. 



5. Concluding prayer, by the Rev. Mr. Pierpont. 



6. Music, by the Band. 



Judge Story, in his address, thus spoke of the con- 

 nection of the Society with Mount Auburn : 



1 'The Legislature of this Commonwealth, with a parental fore- 

 sight, has clothed the Horticultural Society with authority (if I 

 may use its own language) to make a perpetual dedication of this 

 spot as a rural cemetery or burying ground, and to plant and em- 

 bellish it with shrubbery and flowers, and trees and walks, and 

 other rural ornaments. And I stand here, by the order and in 

 behalf of this Society, to declare that by these services it is to be 

 deemed henceforth and forever so dedicated. Mount Auburn, in 

 the noblest sense, belongs no longer to the living, but to the dead. 

 It is a sacred, it is an eternal trust. It is consecrated ground. 

 May it remain forever inviolate ! ' ' 



The scene was thus described in the Boston Courier 

 of the time, doubtless by Joseph T. Buckingham, the 

 editor, who was one of the consecrating committee, and 

 who entered into the full spirit of the occasion and of 

 the enterprise. 



"An unclouded sun, and an atmosphere purified by the showers 

 of the preceding night, combined to make the day one of the most 

 delightful we ever experience at this season of the year. It is 

 unnecessary for us to say that the address of Judge Story was per- 

 tinent to the occasion ; for, if the name of the orator were not suffi- 

 cient, the perfect silence of the multitude, enabling him to be 

 heard with distinctness at the most distant part of the beautiful 



