Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-09-01

lnIouRn tne dICneu gateway un0er tne neliIyi
came a funeral procession. At its head wal
ked a priest in white s%urplice, chanting
Peasants, old and young, followed him with
burning tapers in their hands. A young girl
carried in her arms a dead child, wrapped in
its little winding sheet. The grave was
close under the wall, by the church door,
A vase of holy water stood beside it. The
sexton took the child from that girls arm,
and put it into a coffin and as he placed it
in the grave, the girl held a cross over il,
wreathed with roses, and the priest and pea
SAINTS sung a funeral hymn. When this was
over, the priest sprinkled the grave with no.
ly water; and then they all went into the
church, each one stopping as they passed the
grave TO throw a handful Of earth into it, and
sprinkle it with holy water.
A few moment afterwards The voice Of the
priest was heard saying mass in the church,
and Flenning saw the toothless old sexton
tIeading the fresh earth into the grave of the
little girl with his clouted shoes. He APP
preached him and asked the age of the de-
ceased. The sexton leaned a moment on his
spade and, Struggling his shoulders, said
"Only an hour or two. 1t was born in
the night and died early this morning"
"a brief existence" said Flemming.-
"The child seems to have been born only TO
he buried, and have its name recorded on a
wooden tombstone"
The sexton went on with his work and
made no reply. Flemming still fingered a.
mong the graves, gazing with wonder at the
strange devices by which man has rendered
death horrible, and the grave loathsome.
In the temple of Juno at Ellis, Sleep and
his twin brother, Death, were represented as
reposing in the arms Of Night. On various
funeral monuments Of the a%ncients, the &C.
MUS Of Death is sculptured az a beautiful
youth on an inverted torch in the attitude Of
repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed.
In such a peaceful and attractive form, did
the Imagination of the ancient poets represent
death. And these were men in whose souls,
the religion of Nature was like the light of
stars, beautiful, but faint and cold Strange
that in latter days, this angel OF God, which
leads us with a gentle hand into the ''land of
the great departed, into the silent land"
should have been transformed into a mon
strous and terrific thing! Such is the spec
trail rider on the white horse-such the ghast-
ly skeleton with scythe and hour-glass-the
reaper whose name is Death
One of the most popular themes of poetry
and painting in the middle ages, and contin-
uing down even 10 modern times, was the
Dance of Death. In almost all languages is
it written-the apparition Of the grim spectre,
putting a sudden stop to all business, and
leading men away into the "remarkable re-
tirement" of the grave. 1t is written in an
ancient Spanish poem, aud painted on a
wooded bridge in Switzerland.
The designs of Holbein are all well known.
The most striking among them is that where
Death has taken one by the hand and is lea
ding it out OF the door. Quietly and %unresis-
tingly goes the child, and in its countenance
no grief, but wonder only while the other
children are weeping and stretching forth
their hands in vain towards their departed
brother. A beautiful design it is in all save
the skeleton. An Angel had been better, with
folded wings and torch inverted.
And now the sun was growing high and
warm. A little chapel, whose door stood
open, seemed to invite Fleming to enter and
enjoy the grateful GOODNESS. He went in
There was no one there. The walls were
covered with paintings and sculpture of the
rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets.
There was nothing to move the heart to de-
v~otion, but in that no IT the heart of Flem-
ming was weak-weak as a child's. He
bowed his stubborn knees and wept. And
o! how many bitter recollections, how much
of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were
in those tears, through which he read on a
marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, this
singular inscription:
"Look not mournfully into the Past,a 1t
comes not back again. Wisely improvesthe
Present. 1t is thine. Go forth TO meet the
s~hadowy future without fear, and with a man
ly heart"
II seemed to him as if the unknown tenant
of the grave had opened his lips of dust, and
spoken to him the words of consolation,
which his soul needed, and which no friend
had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish
of his thoughts were still. The stone was
rolled away from the door Of his heart death
was no longer there, but an angel clothed in
white. He stood up, and his eyes were no
longer bleared with tears and, looking into
the bright morning heaven, he said
81 will be strong"
Men sometimes 90 down into tombs with
painful l~ongings 10 behold once more the ia
! ces of their departed friends; and as they
8 gaze upon them lying there so peacefully
with the semblance that they wore on earth,
, the sweet breath of Heaven touches them and
they crumble and fall together, and are but
. dust. So did his soul then descend for the
, last time in the great tomb of the Past, with
. painful l%ongings to behold once more the deai
faces OF those he had loved and the swee
breath of Heaven touched them, but crumbleC
away and persisted as he gazed. They, too
t were dust. And thus, far-sounding. he hearC
the gate of the Past shut behind him as tn,
. Divine Poet did the gate Of Paradise, whel
the angel pointed him the way up the Holy
Mountain and to him likewise was it forbid
den to look back.
: In the life of every man there are suddel
; transitions of feeling, which seem almos
! miraculous. At once, as if some magicia
e had touched the heavens and the earth. tn,
!; dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls
- and serenity succeeds the storm. The cat
:" ses which produce these sudden change
T. NAV have been long at work within US, bl