Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1861-11-21

The DEAD.-The dead are the only people
that never grow old. There was something ty-
pical in the arrestment of time in the case of
the youthful miner, of whom we have already
spoken Your little brother or sister that died
long ago remains in death and remembrance
the same thing forever. 1t is fourteen years
this evening since the writer's sister left this
world. She was fifteen years old then--she is
fifteen years old yet. l have grown older since
by fourteen years, but she has never changed as
they advance; and if God spares me to four
score, shall never think of her as other than
the youthful creature she faded. The other day
| listened as poor old woman told of the death
of her first born child. He was two years old.
She had a small washing -green across which
she had stretched rope that came in the mid
die close to the ground The boy was leaning
on the rope. swinging backward and forward,
shouting with delight. The mother went into
the house and lost sight of him for a moment,
and when she returned the little one was lying
across the rope, dead. 1t had got under his
chin; he had not sense to push it away, and he
was suffocated.
The woman told me, and believe truly, that
she had never been the same person since but
the thing that mainly struck me was, that though
1t IS eighteen years since then, she thought of
her child at an infant of two years yet it is a
little child she looks for at the gate of the Gold
en- City Had her child lived he would have
been twenty years old now; he died, and he is
only two; he is two yet; he will never be more
than two. The little rosy face of that morning
and the little half articulate voice, would have
been family remembered by the mother had
they gradually died into oyhood and manhood;
but that day stereotyped them; they remain un-
changed.
Have you seen, my reader, the face that had
grown old in life grow young after death ?-the
expression of many years SINCE lost for long
time, come out staringly in the features, fixed
and cold Every one has seen it, and it is
sometimes strange how rapidly the change takes
place The marks of pain fade out, and with
them the marks Of age.
once saw an aged lady die. She had borne
sharp pains for many days with the endurance
OF martyr; she had to bear sharp pains to the
very last. The features were tense and rigid
with suffering they remained so while life re-
mained. 1t was n beautiful sight to see the
change that took place in the very instant of
dissolution.
The features, sharp for many days with pain,
in that instant recovered the old aspect of quie-
tude which they had borne in health the tense
light look was gone. You felt that all suffering
was over. 1t was no more, of cotrse, than the
working of physical law, but in that case it
seemed as if there was further meaning con-
yeyed. And so it seems to me when the young
look comes back on the departed Christians
face. Gone, it seems to say, where the pro-
gress of time shall no longer bring age and de-
cay. Gone where there are beings whose life
may be reckoned by centuries, but in whom life
is fresh and young, and always will be so
Close the aged eyes Fold the aged hands in
rest Their owner is no longer old.-Recollec-
tionS Of a Country Parsoa.