The Yazoo City weekly Whig. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 18??-1855, 1853-04-08
RQR THE WHO.

April 3rd, 1858.
Dear Mrs Precett.:
Being of necessity deprived the pleasure
of going to church this morning, retired
to my closet and now submit to you my Sab
bathday's meditations. So many melan-
choly events have of late crossed my angle
of vision. my thoughts naturally turned on
the subject of Death: and the inquiry pre-
scented ITSELF whence, and what is it? wheth-
er an evil or a good.
There is not, Madam, subject of more
intense and solemn inquiry than this. The
stocs bestowed too much cost upon it, and
by their great preparations made it appear
more fearful than it is in reality. The
shroud-the winding sheet-the dismal
hearse-the heavy earth-the lonely grave
all passed in review before me, and the
reflection followed that neither age-sex-
neutrality-suspicious. fession-temper -
or condition, was exempt from it. 1t is the
one circumstance under which all meet: the
state. of which every one is equally certain;
the event which happeneth to all: 1.-THE one
grand point of union" In tracing the opin-
ions of the learned, End all is conjecture:
one calls il ga sort of Sleep" if sleep it be,
what dreams may not appear! Should we
not be careful how the day is spent-lest
itgive some coloring to the night?
Another speaks daringly, and says:
death is but what the naughty brave,
The weak must bear-the wretch must crave. :"
Some of the present day, define Death
"the mere extinction of life, humiliation, !"
DC, and quote Scripture to prove it, cas-
the tree falleth. SO it lieth;" Immortality is a
mythos, say they: if this be true, the Mole
is better off and happier than is sentient
man. cannot yield credence to so wild a
conjecture as that other animals are uner-
ringly directed, and man alone left 70 grope
about in death. whence this pleasing
hope-this fond desire--this longing after
Immortality? and whence this secret dread,
and inward horror of falling into nought?
Why shrinks the soul back on herself and
startles at destruction. It's the divinity
that stirs within u.s. IT'S Heaven itself that
points out hereafter, and intimates eterni-
ty to man.
Another teaches. that death is nothing
more than the relapsing of matter into its
pristine state, and in imagination, trace the
noble dust of Alexander until he finds it
stopping the bung hole of beer barrel
This idea is Enthusiastically carried out in these
lines
"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop hole, to keep the wine away;
o! that the earth which kept the world in awe,
Should patch wall,to expel the winters iaw!"
Another triumphantly assures US. that
Death is the deliVerer from darksome pri-
son. 1t may be SO to the spotless soul, but
not so to him who is wallowing in the mire
and corruption of the world.
Another with more gravity and solemni
ty remarks, Death is the passage to another
world: the change that brings us before the
Bar of Cod There is majesty in the tho't.
Why then do vain mortals waste their brief
moments in empty pursuits We're we spar
ed one more day, would we not manage it
with more economy? Alas! we are avari
cious of certain and prodigal of an uncer-
tain time. We are not sure of day-anI
hour-a moment-yet we set about employ
ments of great extent, yet of little value, we
pursue shadows and neglect the SOUL This
is neither wise nor prudent. t would be
well for US to keep up an habitual prepara-
ton to meet the Judge, and to strive against
every offence that might aggrayate the
awfulness of that meeting,
The thing next to be considered, IS Death
an evil? The more reflect, the less I am
inclined to think it is; as the worm is en-
Lombed before it becomes butterfly, 50 we
must 60 through similar process ere we
san wing our way to Heaven. It is as ma
Inral to die as to be born; the difference be-
.ween The day ID which We begin and that