Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1870-12-27

1889 my Will De dOne t--o
Renew my will from day to day, AZ,
Blend it with Thine and take away
All that now makes it hard to say
z Thy will be done & a4
Then when on earth breathe no more,
The prayer oft mixed with tears before,
s I'll sing upon happier shore
1Ca Thy will be donel Als
a gsT @Zee = -. .-- - - AMEN.
A friend having furnished us with copy of
the " Watchman of the South" dated June
9th, 1874, published at that time in Rich
mond, and edited by Rev. VIM. S. Plummer,
D. D., we republish from it's columns the fol-
lowing communication signed ''Viator," and
headed Thinking Spring." which we feel as
sured will be read with much interest by many
Of our readers in this county:
From the Watchman of the South.
TINKLING SPRING.
The Settlers of the great Valley of Virginia
congregated in neighborhoods, and laid their
dead side by side, near their place of worship,
unless some hard necessity turned them to
another place of sepulture Sabbath by Sab
bath, going to the house of God, they wept
over the graves of loved ones that died early
in their exile, and joining the assemblage for
solemn worship, cast glance at the resting
place of friend, and catching in their souls
the gentle whisper dust thou art, bowed at
the feet of him who is 1.-The resurrection and
the life @
Affection watches over the grave and plants
flowers Piety gathers lessons of humility
from the mounds of the dead, chastens afec-
ton, and makes common cause in att1lctlon.-
The rich and the poor meet together, and In
the common graveyard the sympathies Of a
whole congregation are poured into the mourn
er' s bosom.
You may find the resting place of the Pho
neers of the Valley by following the footsteps
of the immigration as it advanced from the 20
tomac to the Catawba. But often as you walk
meet the fathers, and the children, and the
grand children side by side, no precedencs OF
place for age-strangers intermingled In
scriptions on the few scattered monuments, here
speaking of an emigrant OF an hundred years,
and there of a sleeper who came down but as
yesterday. Often, very often, in the midst of
the forest OF graves, you cannot tell where rest
the men and the women who had courage to
lead the way in settling beyond the noun
tains, and give what Governor Gooch desired
for his province, line of defence against the
savages, buying immunity in their religion, by
the freedom from fears and alarms and massa-
| il, on the settlements below the Blue Ridge.
In some few spots you are among the ances-
| tors Were the graves to give up their dead,
| and the dust be fashioned into bones and slneWs
| and put on flesh like he forms that mouldcred
| there you would gaze upon the determined
| visagt ofi the-men aud the cain decision OF
| the nfatrpns-StneCi I o-worn iraEies he labor
| hardened hands OF generation that o?ed a
| church without prelate--a generatl ~ that
| fed fron The epi,i essio't ti,at herrassed Their
ancestors Tor Centuries. anu like them nn2nve:-
nable iu their demands for the unaeuable
| rights man : u generation OF men and wO-
men that accomplished in their poverty, what
wealth cannon purchase, and reared another
generation to hazard death for freedom Of con-
science and liberty of person-'for State
without King" Such an one you may find
at TINKLINa SPRING, in Augusta county, Vir-
ginia. -. osa
Going down, from the splendid prospect from
Rocktssh Gap, to the edge Of the ''late coun-
try" as the Sage of Monticello termed it, you
enter the bounds Of the oldest congregation in
Augusta, one that contends with Opeequon for
the honor of being the first in the Great Val
ley, and the first in the State after the days of
MAKEMIE-the congregation Of the Triple
stretched across the Valley from this Gap to
that Western Ridge in the horizon. You are,
too, in the bounds of that division of the con-
gregation named Itnkhng Spring, which as
sembled to worship God in the Southeastern
part of the settlement; the old stone church be-
ing the place for assembage for the North
westesn part that lay along the country ira
versed by the paved read. Ministers were
few. and men went far to worship-far, as it
would now be estimated, as then eight and ten
miles were an ordinary ride or walk for Sab
bath morning to the house oi God.
Would you visit the place OF the first altar
in this wilderness, place sanctifed by the
worship Of God for almost century Pass
on through this fourishing village OF Waynes-
boro' go along the Staunton road some three
miles and diverge to the left some two miles
if you come from the village of Asylums..;
where the insane find home and their lost
reason, the blind are taught to read, and the
dumb to converse, that workshop of benevo-
ence-you will pass along the turnpike towards
the beautiful Ridge that seems now to offer a
passage to the East, every where amongst its