The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1854-10-13
THE SHADOW OF LIFE.
We have rarely met with any thing more
beautiful than the following, which we find
In the New York Mirror of a recent date:


beautiful than the following, which we find
In the New York Mirror of recent date:
"All that live must die:
Passing through Nature to Eternity"
Men seldom think Of the great event of
Death until the dark shadow falls across their
own path, hiding for ever from their eyes the
face of the loved one whose living smile was
the sunlight of their existence. Death is the
great antagonism of Life; and the cold thought
of the tomb is the skeleton in all our feasts.
We do not want to g Though the dark val.
ley, although its passage may lead to paradise;
and, with Charles Lamb, we do not wish to
lie down in the mou liering grave, even with
kings and princes for our bedfellows. But the
fiat of Nature is inexGable. There is no ap-
peal or reprieve from the great law that
dooms us all to dust We flourish and fade
like the leaves of the forest, and the fairest
flower that blooms and withers in day has
not Trailer hold on hfe than the mightiest
monarch that ever shook the earth by his
footsteps. Generations of men appear and
vanish like the grass; and the countless null
titudes that swarm the world to-day will to-
morrow disappear like footprints on the
shore.
''Soon as the rising tide shall beat
Each trace will vanish from the sand"
We do not recur to the great fact for the
purpose of making ourselves or our readers
gloomy. We believe the light of immortality
shines eternally behind the dark cloud. No
one knows how a soul feels an hour after
death. God has but vaguey revealed the
great secret of the future life. The longing
to live is the strongest evidence that individual
existence does not end with mortal life; and
the everlasting hope of something better to
come, which buoys up the weary, world-worn
pilgrim in his journey through life, implies n
promise of its own fulfilment. Death is but a
change. 1t cannot be an "eterlal sleep"
In the beautiful drama of 'lol," the instinct
of immortality so eloquently uttered by the
death devoted Greek finds deep response in
every thoughtful SOUL 1t is natures prophe-
cy of the life to come. When about to yield
his young existence as n sacrifice to fate, bis
betrothed Clemanthe asks if they shall not
meet again. To which he replies: 81 have
asked that dreadful question of the hills that
look eternal; of the flowing streams that lucid
flow for ever; of the stars amid whose fields
of azure my raised spirit hath walked in go-
ry. All, all were dumb. But while | gaze
upon thy living face feel there's something
in the love which mantles through its beauty
that can not wholly perish. We shall meet
again Clemanthe."
We believe this conviction of the souls
endurance after death to be as universal as the
soul itself, the hollow professions of the
skeptic to the contrary Notwithstanding
Who would consent to live day in misery
and pain, if he ''could his quietus make with
a bare bodkin" Knowing that death is al
ways imminent, and ultimately inevitable,
men who only toll and suffer would gladly lie
down and die at the end of the first DAVIS
work. But they live on and struggle on,
fighting "soinet'tho "comn,on enomy" with
all their might, and even the wretched miser,
whose heart is welded to his golden god, will
give millions on his death-bed for one short
hour more of life, when every motion is n
pang and every breath groan.
1t seems harder now than ever for our poor
human race to become reconciled to the uni
versa doom. Very few can say with the poet,
on approaching lfe's last mile stone, that
Resignation gently slopes the way"
They would "fain lay their Intellectual fin
BCl upoil piO SpOhOo VI thC SISdp anu
stop where they are. Even the word,wean-
ing discipline of years of sickness can scarcely
bring the poor patient to think of the "narrow
house," and of the sable omnibus that never
brings passenger back, without shudder
of reluctance. Little children try to keep
their eyes open at night for fear of dying be-
fore morning; and the tottering old man, who
has out-lived all his kindred, is not yet ready
to go. Husbands and wives, parents and
children, brothers and sisters, how closely
they cling together in the death chamber, or
when, in times of pestence, the "death angel
spreads his wings on the blastw How sad
to part with those we love, with but the dim
assurance of reunion in another state Of ex-
For how, or where, or what we shall
be when the breath ceases, and the heart
stops beating, and the body grows cold,
neither the voice of Nature nor the Book of
is sufficiently explicit to remove all
doubt even in the minds of the most docile
believers.
TRUE HERoIsM.-An eflecting incident oc-