The constitutional union., 1861-01-25
AT THE GREAT MILESTONE.

Life has often been called a way journey, pilgrimage, and all mortals are pilgrims To-day the Wandering Jew (who in our nine teenth century may be pedler with a pack or a patent on his restless shoulders after all stands by the wayside and reads upon the out worn face of some stone image-an old man with a childs dreaming eyes resting under the snow vail of his bosom: "The Great 1lilestonc-L am the Past-Weep" But there seems a soul bIossoming into a smile on the marble lips of the dreaming child-dream- ing in marble-and a whisper grows into the heart of the pilgrim: '' am the Future Smile" Then the stone image of the old man and the dreaming child vanishes and there is lonely heart beating in the solitude, and it whispers, Regret not-the old year takes the mortal, Memory, but the new year gives the angel Hope"
 All of us are that pilgrim; humanity is the homeless One-eyer on threshold but never passing over it. We all stand at the great milestone of time; we see the marble image the old man with the child nestled in the snow of his dead bosom, asleep; we read all the traceries of the wrinkled face am the Past-W eep'-and translate the marble dreamers soul: < am the Future-Smie" And so on the great highway of the world we pass the old life of the dead time-always the Present lighted with the soul of the Future Are there tollng bells are there funeral trains, are there open graves when we come to the Great Milestone? The years closing is the type of a great death: the air is full of tolling bells the darkness is thronged with funeral trains of the vanished hours the open grave of the year shows the cofiins in the vaults of our lives where the holy dead lie beau- tiful. And from them arise-tor the beautiful faces are only dust-like exhaations, phan- tom-likened and ghostly, the souls of the Past When we pause at the Great Milestone and read the inscription, < l am the Past-W cen" :" these are the sounds we hear, or rather the ghosts of sounds, for they are echoes of bells
 That distance of recognizance bcreaves; these spirits of the vanished hours. some with asphodels and some with amaranth-b -bosoms the forms that follow the year whose Memory is an old man with a chld's head in the drift ed snows of his bosom; the open grave we see are in our lives, and from them the silent companions of thought arise on the hushed stairways of our hearts.
 Death bears the Angel Life in his arms asleeP-the marble Memory of the old bears the marble Hope of the figures that make the pilgrim finger at the Great Milestone He pauses and fingers and listens; he
 Looks before and aller,
 And pines for what is not
 He asks stern questions-but the angels will not answer; and the grave only echoes them Behind him is the way he has come before him is the way his footsteps were going. And he bends down and kisses the marble child and whispers into his ear" Winter?" And the child seems waking from its marble dream and smiling. And this is all but this is the assurance" am the Future-Smile" Then the restless world goes on, " toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing"
 We have all passed the Great Milestones before. All of us have seen the old worn face with a snowfall of Time upon his bosom, and the child that dreams of Spring under that snowfall of Winter; he whose voice is silence" l am the Past--Weep"- he whose smile is language-"I am the Future Smile"
 In the Roman Forum there was gilded pill lar called the Nt1liariune Aeueune, from which every distance was measured in all directions from this heart of the Empire. And, some times, looking back, we see the Great Mile stones transfgured in some holy light
 The light never was on sea or shore, The consecration and the poets dream and the marble image has halo about its