New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-08-18

we nave rarely meL Will dny tulng HloTe
beautiful than the following, which we find in
the New York Mirror of recent date:
eA 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 antago-
nism of Life; and the cold thought of the tomb
is the skeleton in all our feasts. We do not
want to go through the dark valley, although
its passage may lead to paradise; and, with
Charles Lamb, we do not wish to lie down in
the Wondering grave, even with kings and
princes for our bedfellows But the fiat of
Nature is inexorable. There is no appeal 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 a day has not Trailer hold on
life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook
the earth by his footsteps. Generations of men
appear and vanish like the grass; and the
countless multitudes that swarm the world to-
day will tomorrow disappear like footprints on
the shore:
tsoon 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 q soul feels an hour after death.
God has but vaguely 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 ever
lasting hope of something better to come, which
buoys up the weary, world-worn pilgrim in his
journey through life, implies a promise of its
own fulfilment. Death is but change. 1t can
not be an ss eternal Sleep
In the beautiful drama of lon,'' the instinct
of Immortality SO eloquently uttered by the
death devoted Greek finds deep response in
every thoughtful soul. 1t is natures prophecy
of the life to come. When about to yield his
young existence as q sacrifice to fate, his be-
trothed 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 How
for ever; of the stars amid whose fields of azure
my raised spirit hath walked in glory. All
all were dumb. But while ! gaze upon thy
living face [ feel there's something in the love
| which nantes through its beauty that can moi
| wholly perish. We shall meet again, Gle
MANTLE"
| We believe this conviction of the souls en-
| durance after death to be as universal as the
soul itself, the hollow professions of the skeptic
| to the contrary Notwithstanding, Who woulc
| consent to live day IN misery and pain, if he
g could his quietus make with a bare bodkin y
knowing that death is always imminent, ant
ultimately inevitable, men who only toll ant
suffer would gladly lie down and die at the enc
of the first days work. But they live on ant
struggle on, fighting against the 6" common
enemy with all their might; and even tn
wretched miser, whose heart is welded to hi
golden god, will give millions on his death bet
for one short hour more Of life, when every
motion is q pang and every breath groan.
1t seems harder now than ever for our poo
human race to become reconciled to the uniyer
sal DOOM Very few can say with the poet, Oh
approaching life's last milestone, that
Resignation gently slopes the way.'
They would s. fain lay their Intellectual fnge
upon the spokes of the great Wheel and sto
where they are. Even the world weaving dis
cipline of years of sickness can scarcely brin
the poor patient to think of the &c narro'
house." and of the sable omnibus that neve
brings passenger back, without shudder {
: reluctance. Little children try to keep thei
eyes open at night for fear of dying befol
morning; and the tottering old man, who he