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broken pane, here and there, is robbed of its desolateness. A little thoughtful attention, how happy it makes the old! They have outlived most of the friends of their early youth. How lonely their hours! Often their partners in life have long filled silent graves; often their children they have followed to the tomb. They stand solitary, bending on their staff, waiting till the same call shall reach them. How often they must think of absent, lamented faces, of the love which cherished them, and the tears of sympathy which fell with theirs-now all gone. Why should not the young cling around and comfort them, cheering their gloom with happy smiles?

That old man! what disappointments he has encountered in his long journey, what bright hopes blasted, what sorrows felt, what agonies endured, how many loved ones he has covered up in the grave. And that old woman too! husband dead, children all buried or far away, life's flowers faded, the friends of her youth no more, and she waiting to go soon. Ought we ever to miss an opportunity of showing attention to the aged, of proffering a kindness, or lighting up a smile, by a courteous act or a friendly deed?

Why speak of age in a mournful strain? It is beautiful, honorable, eloquent. Should we sigh at the proximity of death, when life and the world are so full of emptiness? Let the old exult because they are old. If any must weep, let it be the young, at the long succession of cares that are before them. Wel come the snow, for it is the emblem of peace and of

rest. It is but a temporal crown which shall fall at the gates of Paradise, to be replaced by a brighter and a better.

Death.

NO SEX is spared, no age exempt. The majestic and courtly roads which monarchs pass over, the way that the men of letters tread, .the path the warrior traverses, the short and simple annals of the poor, all lead to the same place, all terminate, however varied in their routes, in that one enormous house which is appointed for all living. One short sentence closes the biography of every man, as if in mockery of the unsubstantial pretensions of human pride, "The days of the years of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died." There is the end of it "And he died." Such is the frailty of this boasted man. "It is appointed unto men"-unto all men"once to die." No matter what station of honor we hold, we are all subject to death.

As in chess-play, so long as the game is playing, all the men stand in their order and are respected according to their places-first the king, then the queen, then the bishops, after them the knights, and last of all the common soldiers; but when once the game is ended and the table taken away, then they are all confusedly

tumbled into a bag, and haply the king is lowest and the pawn upmost. Even so it is with us in this life; the world is a huge theater, or stage, wherein some play the parts of kings, others of bishops, some lords, many knights, and others yeomen; but death sends all alike to the grave and to the judgment.

The dust

Death comes equally to us all and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an oak in a chimney are no epitaph of that, to tell me how high or how large that was; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered when it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. of great men's graves is speechless too: it says nothing; it distinguishes nothing. "As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldst not, as of a prince whom thou couldst not look upon, will trouble thine eyes if the wind blow it thither; and when a whirlwind hath blown the dust of a church-yard into a church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the church into the churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce: This is the patrician, this is the noble flower, and this is the yeoman, this is plebeian bran?”

Look at that hero, as he stands on an eminence and covered with glory. He falls suddenly, forever falls. His intercourse with the living world is now ended, and those who would hereafter find him must seek him in the grave. There, cold and lifeless, is the heart which just now was the seat of friendship; there, dim and sightless, is the eye whose radiant and enlivening orb beamed with intelligence; and there, closed forever, are those lips, on whose persuasive accents we have so often and so lately hung with transport.

From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there proceeds, methinks, a light, in which it is clearly seen that those gaudy objects which men pursue are only phantoms. In this light, how dimly shines the splendor of victory-how humble appears the majesty of grandeur! The bubble, which seemed to have so much solidity, has burst, and we again see that all below the sun is vanity.

True, the funeral eulogy has been pronounced, the sad and solemn procession has moved, the badge of mourning has already been decreed, and presently the sculptured marble will lift up its front, proud to perpetuate the name of the hero and rehearse to the passing traveler his virtues—just tributes of respect, and to the living useful-but to him, moldering in his narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How vain! how unavailing!

Approach, and behold, while I lift from his sepulchre its covering! Ye admirers of his greatness-ye emulous of his talents and his fame-approach and behold him now. How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements; no fascinating throng weep, and melt, and tremble at his eloquence! Amazing change! A shroud, a coffin, a narrow, subterraneous cabin!-this is all that now remains of the hero! And is this all that remains of him? During a life so transitory, what lasting monument, then, can our fondest hopes erect!

My brethren, we stand on the borders of an awful gulf, which is swallowing up all things human. And is there, amidst this universal wreck, nothing stable,

nothing abiding, nothing immortal, on which poor, frail, dying man can fasten? Ask the hero, ask the statesman, whose wisdom you have been accustomed to revere, and he will tell you. He will tell you, did I say? He has already told you, from his death-bed, and his illumined spirit still whispers from the heavens, with well-known eloquence, the solemn admonition: "Mortals hastening to the tomb, and once the com panions of my pilgrimage, take warning and avoid my errors; cultivate the virtues I have recommended; choose the Savior I have chosen; live disinterestedly; live for immortality; and would you rescue anything from final dissolution, lay it up in God."

Ah, it is true that a few friends will go and bury us; affection will rear a stone and plant a few flowers over our grave; in a brief period the little hillock will be smoothed down, and the stone will fall, and neither friend nor stranger will be concerned to ask which one of the forgotten millions of the earth was buried there. Every vestige that we ever lived upon the earth wili have vanished away. All the little memorials of our remembrance-the lock of hair encased in gold, or the portrait that hung in our dwelling, will cease to have the slightest interest to any living being.

We need but look into the cemetery and see the ten thousand upturned faces; ten thousand breathless bosoms. There was a time when fire flashed through those vacant orbs; when warm ambitions, hopes, joys and the loving life pushed in those bosoms. Dreams of fame and power once haunted those empty skulls. The little piles of bones, that once were feet, ran

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