lived in ease and affluence, and they who have earned their bread by the sweat of the brow; there, also, rest the patriarch, who has seen his children of the third and fourth generation, and the infant which only opened its eyes to the light to close them for ever; and there, too, is manhood, taken in the exercise of its sober dignity and wisdom, the mother in the midst of her solicitude, the daughter in all her loveliness, the son in the beauty of youth or in the vigor and manliness of riper years. There All softly lie and sweetly sleep The storm that wrecks the wintry sky, "Reader! if you would have the sympathies of your nature awakened, your earthly affections purified, your anxieties chastened and subdued, your hopes animated, your faith strengthened, go to Mount Auburn. Go not for the gratification of idle curiosity, to comment with the eye of a critic upon the forms of the monuments, or the taste of those who placed them there; and above all, go not there, as the manner of some is, with cold indifference, to scoff at the mourner, and, with heartless irreverence, to shock the sensibility of the bereaved with your antic and unseemly behavior, and the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.' But go to read and to learn the lesson which you must, yourself, at some future day, transmit to those who come after you. Enter the gate with the solemnity its motto imposes, The dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it. Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the ground is holy. There is no feeling of our nature so vague, so complicated, so mysterious, as that with which a reflecting being looks upon the remains of his fellowmortals, and the emblems and memorials of man's mortality. The dignity with which Death invests even the meanest of his victims, inspires us with an awe which no living thing can create. The monarch on his throne is less awful than the beggar in his shroud. The marble features, the powerless hand, the stiffened limbs, the tongue chained in silence, the eyelids sealed up in darkness. O who can contemplate these with feelings that can be defined? then the spirit which animated the clay, where is it now? Is it wrapt in bliss, or dissolved in wo? Does it witness our grief, and share our sorrows? Or is the mysterious tie, that linked it with mortality, for ever broken ? And the remembrance of earthly scenes, are they to the enfranchised spirit as the morning dream, or the dew upon the early flower?.? Such reflections must naturally arise in every breast; and if you would feel their influence, and profit by their operation, go to Mount Auburn. And "But we must pause. There is not here a foot of earth, nor a monument however humble, that is not worthy of a descriptive record. In this hasty notice, we have omitted some of the most elegant and attractive. "Reader! Forgive the intrusiveness of private affection, that lingers for a moment longer around one spot, on which is a small white marble cenotaph, — denoting that the remains of him, whose name it bears, are not there: The sea his body, Heaven his spirit, holds.' So says the inscription, and to that sentiment, daily and nightly responds the parent's heart, On beds of green sea-flower his limbs have been laid; Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away, Peace to his soul. "But, Reader! it is not to make a parade of personal sorrow that your attention is demanded. It is that you may bear witness to the kindness of a class of men, than which a worthier exists not on the earth. 'BOSTON MECHANICS ERECTED THIS CENOTAPH HERE.' Boston Mechanics. Around that simple expression is entwined the idea of all that is upright in motive, honorable in action, generous in feeling, faithful in friendship, pure as immortal truth in the genuine sympathies of nature. Long may it be, before the votive marble shall record the end of your virtuous labors. And when the hour of departure shall arrive, may he, whose name ye have made sacred in memory, be the first to welcome your entrance among the spirits of the just made perfect." Sept. 25, 1838. THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. "Reader! We meet no more till the year 1838, another of those brief periods, by which the march of Time is measured, shall be numbered with the thousands, which have gone before it. To-morrow, if it should come to us, will open upon us a New Year, impose upon us new duties and responsibilities, unfold new sources of pleasure, expose us to untried afflictions and calamities, and bless us with new opportunities and means of usefulness and improvement. With such views and prospects, who would pluck a feather from the wing of Time, or protract the approach of that crisis, when Faith shall be lost in sight, and Hope absorbed in possession ? Heaven waxeth old, and all the spheres above Shall one day faint, and their swift motion stay; Our bodies, every footstep that they make, But to the Soul, Time doth perfection give, And makes her in eternal youth to live, Like HER, which nectar to the gods doth fill. The more she lives, the more she feeds on truth; The more she feeds, her strength doth more increase; And what is strength, but an effect of youth, Which, if Time nurse, how can it ever cease?" THANKSGIVING. "The rolling year' has once more brought round this time-honored festival, a festival hallowed to the natives of New-England, by reminiscences, which impart new impulse to gratitude, and associations, which strengthen the bonds of affection. To the old, who can look back through the vista of threescore years, numberless are the scenes that pass before them, as visions of pleasure; and how reviving is it to those, in whose veins the current of life has begun to slacken in its motion, to live over again, even for a few moments, the innocent frolics of past-days! And while these enjoy the present by mingling with the past, the young live the future in the instant,' and thus all ages find the ingredients of the exhilarating cup, so compounded that all may taste and bless the Benefactor. "On similar occasions, heretofore, we have exhorted, somewhat in detail, all classes of our readers, to observe this festival with thankful hearts, and have enumerated many causes, which called for the exercise of lively gratitude. Those causes, at this time, are no less in number, nor less entitled to consideration; but we dislike the continued repetition of old sermons, unless they are better than we can write, and we, therefore, on the present occasion, shall admonish our hearers (readers we should have said) of their obligations to a proper observance of the day,considering them as divided into three classes only, that is to say, the Rich, the Poor, and those who stand between these two divisions of society, belonging |