96 HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF 



around the humble mound which covers the de- 

 ceased. Of the monuments to the dead, some are 

 in perfect harmony with the church ; the stones 

 have fallen from their places, and the eye with 

 difficulty deciphers the names of those who have 

 long ceased to be numbered among the inhabitants 

 of earth. Others have all the brightness which 

 indicates that they have just left the hands of the 

 sculptor, and here and there a melancholy mound is 

 seen, whose freshness shows that time has not yet 

 allowed this last memorial to be offered to departed 

 worth. Here, then, lie the dead of Craven County 

 — here lie those whose taste planned, and whose 

 energy reared, this elegant temple ; and here, too, 

 lie those who but yesterday gazed like us upon this 

 strange scene, and experienced the same emotions 

 which now overpower our minds. Here, all Is past. 

 To them the present is an impossibility. The father 

 and the son, the old and the young, the long for- 

 gotten, and the recently loved, all lie here together 

 in one common past, and link it strangely and fear- 

 fully with the future ! 



Before such a scene what vague and undefined 

 thoughts flit across the mind ! If you stand on the 

 north side of the church and look through the open 

 doors (and they are never closed), you see a road 

 coming from the south, whose well-beaten track the 

 eye can distinguish until the sense of sight is over- 

 powered by the distance. On the right and on the 



