and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all tnat we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn, even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down, even upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him? But the grave of those we loved, what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene; the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! the feeble, fluttering, thrilling,-oh, how thrilling!-pressure of the hand! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection! The last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence! Ay, go to the grave of buried love and meditate. There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition. If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet;-then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knock dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant in the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living. 147.-ROCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER. Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,- Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, Shading my faint eyes away from the light; Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep! 148.-INSIGNIFICANCE OF EARTH. THOMAS CHALMERS. Though the earth were to be burned up, though the trumpet of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger of the Divinity has inscribed on it were extinguished forever-an event so awful to us, and to every world in our vicinity, by which so many suns would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes of life and population would rush into forgetfulnesswhat is it in the high scale of the Almighty's workmanship? A mere shred, which, though scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. Though the earth and the heavens were to disappear, there are other worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; and the sky which mantles them is garnished with other stars. Is it presumptuous to say that the moral world extends to these distant and unknown regions? that they are occupied with people? that the charities of home and of neighborhood flourish there? that the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in? that there piety has its temples and its offerings? and the richness of the divine attributes is there felt and admired by intelligent worshipers? And what is this world in the immensity which teems with them; and what are they who occupy it? The universe at large would suffer as little in its splendor and variety by the destruction of our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude of a forest would suffer by the fall of a single leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which supports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest accident. A breath of wind tears it from its stem, and it falls upon the stream of water which passes underneath. In a moment the life with which it teems, as we know by the aid of the microscope, is extinguished; and an occurrence so insignificant in the eye of man, and on the scale of his observation, carries in it to the myriads which may people this little leaf an event as terrible and as decisive as the destruction of a world. Now, on the grand scale of the universe, wethe occupiers of this ball, which performs its little round among the suns and the systems that astronomy has unfolded-may feel the same littleness and the same insecurity. We differ from the leaf only in this circumstance, that it would require the operation of greater elements to destroy us. But these elements exist. The fire which rages within may lift its devouring energy to the surface of our planet, and transform it into one wide and wasting volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter in the bowels of the earth-and it lies within the agency of known substances to accomplish this-may explode it into fragments. The exhalation of noxious air from below may impart a virulence to the air that is around us; it may affect the delicate proportion of its ingredients; and the whole of animated nature may wither and die under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and realize all the terrors which superstition has conceived of it. We cannot anticipate with precision the consequences of an event which every astronomer must know to lie within the limits of chance and probability. It may hurry our globe towards the sun, or drag it to the outer regions of the planetary system, or give it a new axis of revolution-and the effect, which I shall simply announce without explaining it, would be to change the place of the ocean, and bring another mighty flood upon our islands and continents. These are changes which may happen in a single instant of time, and against which nothing known in the present system of things provides us with any security. They might not annihilate the earth, but they would unpeople it, and we, who tread its surface with such firm and assured footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and death over the dominions of the world. Now, it is this littleness and this insecurity which make the protection of the Almighty so dear to us, and bring with such emphasis to every pious bosom the holy lessons of humility and gratitude. The God who sitteth above, and presides in high authority over all worlds, is mindful of man; and though at this moment his energy is felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we may feel the same security in his providence as if we were the objects of his undivided care. It is not for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious agency. But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the same Being, whose eye is abroad over the whole universe, gives vegetation to every blade of grass, and motion to every particle of blood which circulates through the veins of the minutest animal; that, though his mind takes into its comprehensive grasp immensity and all its wonders, I am as much known to him as if I were the single object of his attention; that he marks all my thoughts; that he gives birth to every feeling and every movement within me; and that, with an exercise of power which I can neither describe nor comprehend, the same God, who sits in the highest heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firmament, is at my right hand to give me every breath which I draw and every comfort which I enjoy. 149.-THANATOPSIS. W. C. BRYANT. To him who, in the love of nature, holds When thoughts Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, To Nature's teachings, while from all around- Yet a few days, and thee |