# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/The Necropolis at Glasgow

THE NECROPOLIS AT GLASGOW.
Come o'er the Bridge of Sighs, some twilight hour,
When dimly gleams the fair Cathedral-tower,
And lingering day-beams faintly serve to show
The tomb-stones mouldering round its base below;
—Come o'er that bridge with me, and musing think
What untold pangs have marked this streamlet's brink,
What bitter tears distilled from hearts of woe,
Since first its arches spanned the flood below.
Here hath the mother from her bleeding breast
Laid the young darling of her soul to rest;
Here the lorn child resigned the parent stay,
To walk despairing on its orphan way;
Here the riven heart that fond companion brought
By years cemented with its inmost thought;
Here the sad throng in long procession crept,
To bear the sage, for whom a nation wept,
Or deep in dust the reverend pastor lay,
Whose pure example taught to Heaven the way.
Approach through winding paths yon terrace high,
Whose statued column strikes the traveller's eye,
Or rove from cell to cell, whose marble door
The inhospitable tenants ope no more,
Or on their tablets read the labored trace,
That asks remembrance from a dying race,
Or mark the flowers, whose lips with fragrance flow,
The sweetest tribute to the loved below.
Poor child of Judah, exiled and oppressed,
How wrapped in shades thy lowly spot of rest!
Type of thy fate, for whom no sunbeam falls
In peace and power on Zion's sacred walls;
But by strange streams thy silent harp is hung,
And captive numbers tremble on thy tongue.
Dark is yon gate, through which thy mourners pass
To hide their idols 'neath the matted grass,
And sad the dirge, no Saviour's name that knows
To gild with glorious hope their last repose.
Oh! turn thine eye from Sinai's summit red,
Our Elder Sister, fly its thunders dread,
List to the lay that flowed o'er Bethlehem's plain,
When star and angel warned the shepherd train;
Thou lov'st our Father's Book,—its seers believe, To thy torn breast the holy cross receive,
Bind to the frowning Law the Gospel sweet,
And cast thy burdens at Messiah's feet.
But whether this secluded haunt we tread,
Where Caledonia shrouds her cherished dead,
Or where the Turk funereal cypress rears,
Or the poor Cambrian plants his vale of tears,
Or search Mount Auburn's consecrated glades,
Mid lakes and groves and labyrinthine shades,
Or Laurel Hill, where silver Schuylkill flows,
Quiescent guarding while its guests repose,
Or near the Lehigh's rippling margin roam,
Where the Moravian finds his dead a home,
In lowly grave, by clustering plants o'ergrown,
That half conceal its horizontal stone,
One voice, one language, speaks each sacred scene,
Sepulchral vault, or simpler mound of green,
One voice, one language, breathes with changeless power,
Graved on the stone, or trembling in the flower.
That voice is love for the pale clay, that shrined
And fondly lodged the never-dying mind,
Toiled for its welfare, with its burdens bent,
Wept o'er its woes, and at its bidding went,
Thrilled at its joys, with zeal obeyed its will,
And 'neath the stifling clod remembers still.
Though on the winds its severed atoms fly,
It hoards the promise of the Archangel's cry,
Though slain, trusts on, though buried, hopes to rise,
In ashes fans a fire that never dies,
And with the resurrection's dawning light
Shall burst its bonds, revivify, unite,
Rush to its long-lost friend, with stainless grace,
And dwell forever in its pure embrace.
Friday, September 18, 1840.
The cemetery at Glasgow, called the Necropolis, has a high and pleasant locality on the banks of a stream, surmounted by what is figuratively and appositely called the "Bridge of Sighs." Though it was opened only in 1833, it contains many imposing and costly monuments. A doric column and colossal statue are erected to John Knox on the apex of the hill, and visible to quite a distance. They were placed here several years before the spot was set apart for the purposes of general sepulture.
It was a bright morning when we walked there, and the sun rested pleasantly upon the homes of the dead, the turrets of the fine old cathedral in its vicinity, and the noble city stretching itself beneath. That portion of the cemetery appropriated to the Jews was deeply buried in shades, and had an air of solemnity bordering on desolation. Over the entrance was inscribed, "I heard a voice from Ramah, lamentation, mourning, and woe, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were not."
On the shaft of a column, which is finished in imitation of Absalom's pillar in the King's dale at Jerusalem, are the stanzas from Byron's Hebrew Melodies, commencing, ​
"Oh, weep for those, who wept by Babel's stream."
How adapted to the dispersion and sorrow of the chosen, yet scattered people is the close of that pathetic effusion;
"Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,
Where shall ye flee away and be at rest?
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind his country, Israel but a grave."
On the opposite side of the column is the magnificent poetry of their own prophets. "There is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again unto their own border. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men."
Glasgow, though not peculiarly picturesque, exhibits on the banks of the Clyde some lovely scenery. It is the first city in Scotland, in point of population, as well as in the spirit of enterprise and active industry. Its botanic garden and splendid Hunterian museum should not be overlooked by visitants. Its public squares are ornamented by statues of Nelson, Pitt, and Wellington, Sir Walter Scott, Sir John Moore, and James Watt, the improver of the steam-engine. ​The wealth of its merchants allows them to live in a style of princely liberality, but among the lower classes are indications of deep wretchedness.
Our visit to Glasgow was rendered more interesting by occurring at the time of the annual meeting of the "British Association for the Advancement of Science." Hundreds of distinguished men, from different lands, were thus convened, and it was delightful to hear them presenting, day after day, in their respective section-rooms, the result of their discoveries, or unfolding their theories with earnest and varying eloquence. Here also we saw, for the first time, a gathering of the nobility of Scotland, and occasionally heard speeches from the Marquis of Breadalbane, the President of the Society, from Lord Sandon, Lord Mounteagle, and others. The collateral interests of morality and benevolence were not overlooked by science, in this her proud festival; and on the subject of pauperism, and the best modes of affording it permanent relief, Dr. Chalmers repeatedly spoke with his characteristic fulness and power. He has none of the gracefulness of the practised orator, and his countenance is heavy, until irradiated by his subject. Then mind triumphs over matter, and makes the broad Scotch a pliant vehicle to eloquent thought. He recommended the principle of calling forth the energies of the poor for their own amelioration, with- out the application of any disturbing force; that they should be assisted to elevate themselves, rather than ​be at once paralyzed and degraded, by casting their households on that stinted bounty whose root is taxation. To enforce his theory he went into many details of great minuteness and simplicity, advising, among other things, the keeping of simple sewing-schools by ladies, two hours of two days in the week, for the indigent female children in their neighborhood; and frequent visiting, on the part of philanthropists and Christians, to the abodes of ignorance and vice, that the kindly sympathies thus mutually awakened might be enlisted in the great work of reformation.
The Normal Seminary at Glasgow is an object of interest, to those who feel the importance of a right education in a manufacturing community. Its design is to train teachers, by giving them an opportunity of coming in contact with the young mind, according to the rules of a thorough, and what would seem a correct and beautiful, system. Hundreds of children are assembled in a spacious building, judiciously divided into class-rooms, galleries, &c., and with five play-grounds, furnished with abundant apparatus for sport and exercise, where the teachers mingle with their pupils, carefully superintending their modes of intercourse and the development of their dispositions and affections, in what they expressively call the "uncovered school-room." I was delighted with their bright countenances, and with the promptness and naiveté which marked the replies of some of the youngest classes to the questions of their teachers. ​The infant department comprises all under six years of age, and the juvenile all from six to fourteen. There is also a school of industry for girls from ten years old and upwards, where the various uses of the needle, which are so inseparably connected with domestic comfort, as well as some of a more ornamental nature, are admirably taught. Moral, physical, and religious training are strenuously combined with the intellectual in the system here established, and a spirit of happiness and order seemed to reign, unmarked by the severity of discipline. The Rev. Mr. Cunningham, formerly a professor in one of the Colleges of the United States, is the respected Rector of the Institution; and it owes much to the munificent patronage of David Stow, Esq., author of a volume entitled "The Training System," which contains an exposition of the plan here pursued, and many valuable hints on elementary education in general.
The trainers, who have issued from this Normal Seminary, will have the opportunity of widely exemplifying its system; for they are found not only in different counties of Scotland, England, and Ireland, but in the West Indies, British America, and the far regions of Australia. Who can compute the benefit that may result from their labors, each in his own separate circle lighting the lamp of knowledge, and scattering the seeds of heaven? Or who can sufficiently estimate the value of those charities, which ​aid in rightly educating the unformed mind, except that Being who gave it immortality? Thoughts like these mingled with my departure from the commercial metropolis of Scotland, and with the many treasured recollections of its kindness and hospitality.