Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1859-07-06

burnt at his decease and thus introduced the prac
tice of burning the dead, generally into Rome. Ine
custom prevailed long anterior to his day put was
not generally observed by the people The ancient
Germans from whom ultimately descended the AN
oles and Saxons, and then the British nation, were
likewise addicted to this practice As late as the
wear 1000, urns, containing human bones and otner
relics usually found with the ashes of the dead were
discovered and excavated Il Jutland. The bodies
of Young children who: had not yet commenced
teething or who were not seven months ola, were
never burned; but fires were kindled for them IN
the dwellings of their relatives and TRENDS Tor sever
al days continuously.
With many nations only the great men and their
princes were burned while she common people
-enoyed the rite of inhumation: This was the GUS
tom among the Danes. Some Ignorant and semi
barbarous races actually preferred to die by hre.
under the scnseless conviction that thereby they
would be rendered immortal.
Now all these modes of sepulture have originated
in one and the same desire. The bond which unites
a family, unites a race of men, Man is conscious of
the STRINGS within him, and the voices that whis
per, all assure him that he is the companion and
friend of Others The sympathy so essential to hui
man happiness, is by intuition the birth-rlght OF
man. We enter upon, and pursue life's eventful
Journey side by side The interval between the be-
ginning and end Of the pilgrimage may vary widely
The condition and circumstances of the way may be
wonderfully different The mourning and rejoicing;
the suffering and enjoying; the WEAKNESS and Wig
or; the hopes and fears of the undertaking may be
as diverse as the winds, and yet the termination is
the same The grave-the grave is the resting place
for man! 1t is this community of interest this el-
lowshp in suffering and brotherhood in death, that
would provide peaceful and safe repository for the
dead 1t is this, and the consciousness of an end
less hereafter which invests these quiet resting places
of the departed with such sacredness and importance
If tha has canctIfipd these
lowly habtatOns of the dead and breathes its anath
emas on the thoughtless designing hand that would
disturb the slecpers here.
We are standing now upon enchanted ground
Far beyond us are the sepuchres of patriarchs and
prophets, sres and sons of the olden time. There
are the human relies of an antedeluvian world
Tossed upon the deuge of waters until the last
breath of life was expired, they sank to rest and
covered the earth with their Outspread FORMS
There are the generations of the man of God, whose
faith never wavereG for one hundred and twenty
years. and whose hoary locks glistened in the first
sunlight of that glorious day of deliverance when
the Almighty sealed his covenant with Noah
There are the congregated hosts of wicked SodOm
and Gomorrah whose ashes strew the plains of that
barren waste, and over whose guilty slumbers the
angel of destruction has spread the turbd waters of
the Dead Sea. There lies the venerable patriarch,
1.-THE father of the faithful" clad in the cerements of
the grave and sleeping in undisurbed repose in the
cave of MacpeFah with his beloved Sarah and Isaac
by his side. Yonder are the bones of Joseph, eX-
humed from the land of Egypt where the patriarch
died and carried into Canaan by his brethren,
now pinge in sacred fellowship with the sleeping
ashes of his mnch loved and aged father Jacob; for
Jacob sleeps with his fathers in the field Of Macpe
lab. There is the solitary chamber on the roadside
where the mourning patriarch left his beloved Rch
ael to rest; for Rachel died and was buried in
the way to Eprath which is Bethlehem And then
the long line of the departed stretches across the
wilderness of Tin, and the valley of dry bones is
in the distance. STYLUS