The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-06-22
MISCELL A N E O U S..
From the Herald of Freedom.
Mount Auburn.

A. M. Tuesday, to 10 Tor more) 2. M. Thursday,
it was proposed, by way of ant-slavery dissipation,
to visit this celebrated home of Boston's dead, and
to recruit our overtaxed and worn spirits by ram
bic among It's glades and graves. An ample omni-
bus was bespoken and we filled it within and with
out with ultra abqlionists A cheerier company
never visited the house of feastng" than started
for that home " appointed for all the living" 1t
was not the cheer Of the feast-going multitude how
ever, that animated them. 1t was that lightness
of heart, that follows exercise of the 61oying care
for others"-that care that wrinkles not the brow.
1t was the freedom of neck which comes of wear
ing the yoke of Christ, and that ease of shoulder
found in carrying His {" light burden" A were
abolitionists. Heaven grant the nations omnibus
may speedily be freighted with no Others
1t had been gusty and showery like the begin
nings of some of our conventions) but before we
reached the cemetery, the broke out in all his
clearing-up, afternoon glory, and spread radiance
over the green landscape that can hardly be APP
preciated but by the eye that has been transferred
| from the blank and prison gloom of the city, at
once into the verdant freshness of the country.
| Dschargng our omnibus debt at the gate way
we entered the cemetery. A wide and beautiful
pathway wound before us into the depths of this
last resting place Of the tired city 1t strikes you
as any thing but a burying ground. 1t is entire
y without any of those sombre dsmalities that
adorm the country grave yard. All is cheerful
and springing, and savors more of resurrection
than burial. And why should it not be SO {?
Why should not we regard it a friendly deed of
our mother earth, that she thus receives again our
deserted dust TO her bosom Why should we call
the grave {" that dark inn 3" 1t is no inn. The
traveller does not "put up" there. Nothing but
the tegument is cast off and left for few DAYS,
till the spirit resumes it, renovated in more than
primeval beauty, and decked with Immortality.
The first token that meets you is the tomb of Spur
heinl-on the left, on little eminence, the coum-
try has placed his remains. His name only is in
scribed on the plain marble A gratifying and
touching sight TO the wanderer from the banks of
the Rhine, Passing on, grove and glade hill side,
slope and labyrinth paths and white monuments
peeping out from the deep verdure of woods and
shrubbcry, break upon the delighted approach. :
The ample enclosure, embracing, it is said, some
hundred acres, is broken into numberless Unequal
tiles of every variety--nound and hillock and
high hlll-gentle slope and bold steep--roclty
and smooth-open glade-vsta, thick woods
pond and dell-croWped with native forest, and
sown thick underneath with every shrub and flow
err of the earth almost. Some of the trees were
of the grand forest-cast of the New-Hampshre
hills. We noticed especially some teeches, that
would vie with the tallest in the e Franconia
Notch" Numberless little guide boards, hung
about in the trees, indicated the growth along the
paths to which they led in bewildering multitude.
There was Cedar path and Maple path, Hemlock
path and Beech path: Birch path and Sumac path,
&c. &c. The whole woods were alive with birds,
who, as the afternoon waned, set up their chorus
and turned into grand orchestra this sweet dwell
ing place of silence. We heard there many an
IF do tha
of the Pemegiwassett country (Mr. Buckingham
don't h1aoo mhere that is!) Among others, the
" fife bird" or wood lark, New Eng land nightin
gale or whatever the Audu6on name. We used
to call it fife, bird" though that was probably
home male title. 1t was the same we used to hear
warbe in the Holderness pine woods, along in |
June, when it had cleared off, after a thunder
shower, towards sunset. Then was the time for
this little brown backed, spotted breasted minstrel
to pipe its cearest lay, from the top of the white
pine, The whistle Of the canary bird or the Gagged
nightingale was nothing to it--no more in COM
parison than the narrow court where these little
,aptives sing in the city, to the glorious Moose
hIlock woods. We heard the fife bird" or
species of it in the Mount Auburn thicket, but it
lid not sing the full country strain--it was mu-
,aed tune, amended, perhaps, by Lowell Mason,
is he has Improved Old Hundred,
The only thing that took Off in our fancy, from
he perfect interest of the cemetery, was the osten-
atious display of tomJery. You could not help
seeing the pomp and aristocracy Of the city in these
precincts of mortality. "The ruling passion
strong" after DEATH" The towering homes and
fronts do not frown from the heights
If Beacon street upon the Boston common land
with colder supercilousness, than
he $4,000 obelisks from out their cast-iron
exclusions, upon the rambling vsitant ofthis New
England Pere Ia Chaisc." Church yard /" prop
,rty and standing" good society" of the dead {
first families" in the city of silence-the arisoc-
acy of mortality. Oh. poor human vanity and
emptiness that would maintain family pride" in
he domains of the great leveller. What if they /
av their dust in these marble cerements They $
will sleep there but day The archangel will S
oon rout them with his final trumpet "Tbere q
ire two places" said our fne-minded old neighbor-
rood Judge L, "where mankind ought to OBJ
erve equaity-7the church and the churchyard. +
But vanity excludes the wnylaring man from its
cushioned and lordy pew-and would fain thrust
,ut vulgar mortality from its empty depository at i
he foot Of the far fetched and costly cenotaph.
All this may be ultraism and grave yard fanat-
cism. We were fresh from an anti-slavery con- !
'enton. .. u4 HI ,..ue 1