The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1850-06-04
Rural Cemeteries.

ting and truly beautiful address Of Prof. T.
NJ Posr, at the dedication of the belle.
fontainc Cemetery" at St. Louis, on the 18th
ult-as reported in the St. Louis Republi
can:
Call it illusion. if we please. this feeling
of sympathy with the dead. II is an illusion !
no philosophy can dispel. II springs direct
y from our conscious, painful dread of pass
ing forever away from this world Of light |
and life and love,and having our very thought |
pershing in bosoms most dear. In spite Of |
philosophy, Nature still exclaims
q" All. who todumb forgetfuluess prey,
This pleasing. anxious being Ger resigned
Lett the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor LETT one longing lingering look behind |
On some fond breast, the parting soul relies
Some pious drops the closing eye requires.
Even from the tomb the voice Of nature cries
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.n
Natural taste and scnsibi'i.v again plead
for the rural cemetery. A scemly and beau
iiful sculpture amid the jos lie, and dir and
offences Of sight and sound in the lumut of
the city, 1t is impossibcl In ,he city
church yard, on the borders of our crow ded
and rocking thoroushiares, mid the clang,
aud clamor and dust, and the tianping Of
, feet, and the attlina of wheels, it seems as
if The buried could not rest. We can hard
" disabuse the mind Of The painful illusion,
that the turmoil Of mortal life may still per-
, turb even the Secpcrs Of the grave. The
scnsibltie, Of the mourner are shocked by
a the mingling of vulgar and proiaue life with
2 the awe and silence OF the house of death.
Meditation ilrcs such scencs-lhe sanctity Of
private grief is outraged. The faces of the
n departed will not come to greet your thought
. in such scenes, and the sensitive spirit hastes
to hide its wound away from the stare and
curiosity Of the passing crowd No not
y thcre-bui in scclu~ion, silence and solitude,
=, grief loves to seek The face Of the dead. and
commune with lis memories and hopes ::
!, where the earth with its Silly life, grows
' green in its time, and Spring comes forth
q with It's flowers, beautiful and voiceless and
summer passes in solemn Sabbath glory
and pcnslvc Autumn throws its sepmly shroul
TO OF fading loyelincss over the dying year; and
re the drsoate Winter keeps religiousy.a at least.
it the fitting loneliness and stiffness OF the tomb
Of Grief for the dead also asks seclusion and
isolation. 1t shuns the public walk. The
stare Of the curious crowd Expresses pro
fancs. fortunes it 1t treads its path of sor
row with no idle gazer It asks to love and
weep alone. 1t asks burial place wher,
1n the landscape, with its natural variety o
III surface, and the screen OF hill, and dale, and
c- copse, and thcket, may furnish separat,
k sanctuaiirs for sorrow. Our nature, too. a *
place OF final rest beside the forms loycC
'r- in life We love 10 think we shall at lcnstl
err, sleep with them side by side TO lie dowi
-, at last among our kindred-to DC gathered
en- TO our fathers" and extend the companion
p ship Of life and love to the dark and narroy
10 house, is a wish natural to man. This senti
be ment fees the city church-yard with it
nh crowded graves, and seeks in the rural cen
cv ctery for space to group families and friend
&c in their las long Sleep.
til, These sentiments have, in every age, c
mn tablished burial places amid the high an
p. tranquil and beautiful places OF nature.
Ii hey led the hborgnes to lay the falc
warrior, on some lofty eminence, comman
The ing the widest outlook and fairest view
and cliff and dale, and majestic forest, aud illii
ing table prairies, and the sweep of rivers Wi
their mighty wales, as though the depart
on might be comiorcd in lowering around
pre- tomb by visions magng the happy huntii
EN- grounds of the lar-oli' Spirit Land. Al
the these lead the Indian as he SETS his face
exile towards the distant West. to turn wi
pro- saddest longing and lingering look to 4
'oks grassy headland, or oak shaded noun
&C. Miltlt nc lNt hbIts Vi us ldlhtlSs
up Il was these sentiments, seeking scGlu
cd, tranquil rural, family sepulturc that !
the Fathe of the Faithful to stand up heto
:. his dead in the presence o. the children
ksl lic,h and solicit n a burial place the Fl,
line Of Euhron, which was in VI achpclah beit
Naure and the cave which was in the tie
with all the trees in tie field and in the %
der> round about TO be made sure unto h
ned forever.
1t was these sentiments that led the ,lyi
nIal Jacob, as the shadows of the long MY
re oi miuglng with the awful visions OF prophr
nary gathered on his parting soul, to turn H.
neg the iar-oh land OF his sojourn to where
trees of the field waved over that far
con group of graves, still fresh in memory,
the the cave Of Ma,hpelah, and give commai
j 10 nieni for his own inteIment beside the
IS. IN =" For there they buried Abraham and IS
lhis and Reberca, and there he buried Lea
The same feeling led the diving Joseph
CHI turn away from Pyramid and Mausole
hose that waited his sepulturc, 10 that rural fa
ress " burying place, and give commandm'
concerning his bones-to lay them there "
this his fathers. The love of rural sepult
and led the Children OF Israel TO curry their d,
with under oaks, on hill-tops and in valleys a
gardens and made the bill sides and da
around Jerusalem a cemetery for the de
tiee where, amid those Of tho multitude.
peared the tombs of prophets and kin
'ited This lead the Egyptian to build his cite.
Iious the dead apart from the living Thebes
'usLy Memphis across the Mic. and in forests
ded gens and gorges Of the mountai
netic where the Elysian fields of the under woi
ONT with their flowing meadows and may be
Il he ty, had their archetype.
hle Il.