The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1870-11-30
IN MEMOKIAM,

Died at her residence in Shreveport
on Thursday, November II, 1870, AN
NETTE BUSHNELL, wife Of Alexan-
der X. Mclean, and daughter of Marie
Bushnell and the late Josiah p. Will
liams, of this parish, aged 25 years, /
month and % days.
When the aged sink to rest, after long
years of usefulness and happiness, we
feel that they only obey an inexorable
law OF Nature, and that We cannot claim
for them longer sojourn on Earth.
Cicero likens their death to the fall of
the ripe aud mellow fruit, in the Au-
tumn time, when all that has minister
ed to its sustenance is withered and
blasted by the chilling frost. But the
death OF the young, in the Spring time
OF life, with hopes unrealised and aims
unaccomplished, seldom fails to awak-
en- in US feeling of sorrow that a be-
nevolent Creator should leave untinislt-
ed any OF his beautiful works. Poets,
unable to solve the mystery, have sung
that the young are taken away at a
tehder age because they are the special
ia"orltes of the gods, while we, with
the light of Revelation before us, are
left to find consolation only in the faith
that our Creator "doeth all things
we'll"
1t is, therefore, hard for us to be re-
cOnciled to the departure of our young
friend, or consoled with any Poetic or
Christian theory which shall not re-
store her to us. Young, beautiful and
lovely, endowed with virtues that riv-
eted the affection of husband and rela-
tives, and that won the esteem and ad-
miration of friends, it is hard for us to
understand why she should not have
been permitted to remain with us a
little longer, to cheer a circle that is
now made desolate by her absence.
But we cannot pierce the veil that hides
from our view the mysterious ways of
the Ruler of the Universe.
We laid her to rest on cold, sad
November day, when the Autumn
leaves were falling, the beauties of Ma
ture fading, and the wild winds chant
ing her funeral hymn.
They fall! the eddyipg whirls with wild
unrest
In strange fantastic measure sweep
along,
Dark'ning the air, hiding the Eartb's cold
breast,
Toning sad Nature to a dirge-like song.
List to the master-chord distinct aud full,
With it's wild burthen of decay and
death,
Calling the Springs lost hope, the Sum-
mer's pride,
To swell the requiem with their vanish
ed BREATH" 49,
Under Culture purely aesthetic the
eye of genius saw. in the decay of the
beauties of Nature only necessary
preparation for more brilliant display
in a grand yernal Resurrection. But
when these men committed to the tomb
or the flames the most beautiful of
Gods creation, they had DO well-de-
fined belief that it, too, should under
go a transformation, and rise again
clothed with more Respondent beau
ty and glory. When we, however,
who are blessed with Christian Civil
zation, and who enjoy the consultations
of the Gospel, consigned to the tomb
the body of our departed friend, it was
with firm belief that her pure spirit
would animate even purer and nobler
form "when this mortal shall have put
on Immortality" For we repose in
the sublime Faith that the True, the
Beautiful and the Good attain their
complete development, and find their
full fruition, only in the presence of
Him who is the fountain of all Good
ness, whose worship is the essence Of
all Beauty, and in the society of Him
who is ''the Way, the Life and the
Truth" =.
*From the "Fall of the Leaf in the
Grave Yard on Red River,r by Mrs.