Litchfield enquirer., 1845-07-31

city broke out this morning about o'clock It originafed we believe in Soap Chandlery in New Street and communicated to the store along sise, s9d Jhence to the. rear ola bUifHH m the ceremonies, were the Mayor of the city, the cler- gy, the President and Faculty of Yale College, and some of the venerable founders of the burying ground Various inscriptions, and historical docu- ments were deposited beneath the stones-prayers were made, and hymns sung. Appropriate and striking addresses were made by Professor Olm- s,ean, and Rev. Mr. Bacon.
 The Address of Dr. Bacon is so eloquent and impressive that copy it entire, as reported for the New Haven papers:
 The shortness of the notice which nave hao oI these solemnities, is such, that m addressing my friends and felio.-ctizens on this occasion, can attempt nothing more than to give very mace onate expression to some of the most ooVlous thoughts suggested by the occasion ltselt'
 why have we constructed this strong and dnra- ble enclosure! Why has there been employed up, on 1t all that expenditure ot tune ana property ana care. of which the statement has just been made in opr hearing: Why are we now proceeding to complete the five years' labor by the erection of this massy portal
 It is because this place is sacred as place of graves. These graves are sacred to us by the com mon symrathies of human nature: The grave oi stranger wherever we find it-be 1t by the way side in our iourneyings-be it in the wilderness be it upon some foreign shore-spedks to our sym pathies It may be the grave of one whose name we never heard, or of one whose name has perish ed forever from the earth-yet there are the moui- derng relics of that which once lived, moved' felt struggled, acted, with the life, the impulses, the passions the fears and aspirations and afiec- tions, of our common nature. When, as some' times happens, the ploughshare, passing along one of our New England hill-sides, lays open to the light the bones of some individual of race that once possessed the soil which we call our own--a race forever gone-the ploughman, pausing in his furrow, pays the tribute of that universal human sympathy which honors and guards the grave
 But the graves which we here enclose are not the graves of a vanished race. They are not to us the graves of strangers These graves are sa- cred to us not merely by the sympathles of our common nature as human, but also by the sancti- ties of kindred and affection or of personal reve- rence-Some are illustrious graves, at which the pilgrim from the remotest States of our wide Un- ion, and from regions still more distant, pays the reverence due to those who have been the orna- rnens of their country and the benefacors of man. kind. Many are humble graves, not often noticed, marked only by headstone with name that few remember, or marked only by the rounded turf above. Yet every ore of these graves. from the most illustrious to the most obscure has some spe- cal interest somewhere, in the hearts Of the lIv- ing It is the grave, perhaps, of an ancestor, whose posterity in this living generation know him only by tradition yet their af1ectionate re- membrance hallows the turf that covers his de- caying ashes. It is the grave, perhaps, of parent long since buried; the children that wept there with the bursts of childish grief when that grave was made, have grown old and weary in the con- fics of life but to that grave they still love to turn and there the gray head bows to weep at the remembrance of the bosom on which it rested in its infancy. Perhaps, it is the grave of brother or a sister, or the grave of child. What human being ever finds grave to which some survlvor does not look with growing reverence. or with iin- gering grief. It s not the grave of pety only, or of uprightness and virtue, that is remembered by survivors the grave of the prodgal, the profi- gate the outcast, who died the victim nf bis vices 70 how often is there shed upon that grave tear the more bitter, and the more piercing, for that there is no hope
 The spot then which we are here enclosing, is sacred to US not only place of human graves, hut as the burial place of our own friends and kim dred. We build the massive wall--we plant the thick screen of towering verdure-we pile the ponderous architecture of this portal-that these graves may be secure from proclamation now and in future ages.
 But we have another interest in this enclosure Within these walls other graves are yet to be made Through this gateway-along these sha- ded avenues-the funeral procession IS to pass day after day. year after year, bearing the dead to their fep0Se Graves are 10 Oe OpeHett Helc 1OB tHc AN' ing--for those we love, and, as we hope, for us- Here our families are to be laid-each by itself the families of the dead. And it is our daily hope we put it as in our daily prayers-each of us that in Gods time we may be buried here, This is our home. Here, when the night has overtaken us and the darkness of death has closed around us, we shall lie down together. When the solemnf- ties of the present hour are concluded. we dis perse, we retire to our dwellings vocal with sounds of affection and enjoyment; for little while we pass along these streets and call these houses and this fair heritage of the living ours; but, all the while this is our home. Of those who are o sleep to night under our roocs, one, and another, and an- other, will soon be sleeping here; and thus this spot will be growing dearer and dearer to our af- fections. To how many of us already is this the dearest spot of all the earth +,'
 Therefore it is, that we desire to guard thisspot. We guard it for tho sake of the graves that are. and for the sake of the graves that are to be- It is the burial place of our friends and kindred, the dead and the living. It s the chosen spot of our own last slumber. I'.
 But why such care for the mere relics of mor- tality, the buried bones and ashes of the dead ?- Are the dead here? No. Reason tells us--nature with all her analogies-the impulses and aspra- tions of our own minds tell us-God himself tells us by revelation that the dead, as we call them, are not dead but living. We cannot trace the course of the departing spirit. Where, how, in what mode of being, those who are parted from us have their present existence, we know not. For aught we know, they may surround us at this very hour in a greater assembly than our own 1; they may hover about our daily paths they may watch beside our nightly repose unseen but seeing unheard but hearing; alive to the sympathies of love, and answering with spirits sigh to the sigh that is awakened by each affectionate hut sad remembrance Why care we then for the ashes buried from our sight Why not rise above that