Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1873-10-02
BURIAL OF COL. McAFEE.

Col. L. M. McAfee, who died in this place
on Tuesday evening of last week, was buried
with Masonic honors by Philanthropic Lodge,
No. 78, of Yorkville, on Thursday morning
last. The remains of the deceased brother
were escorted to the Methodist Church by
members of the Lodge and a concourse of cit
liens, and preceding the impressive Masonic
rites of burial, the following funeral discourse
was pronounced by Rev. H. R. Dickson, Pas
tor of the Presbyterian Church., which by re-
quest of the Lodge, has been furnished us for
publication:
Bu, man I ds,h and " wasG ah ~ man sve up the
Every note of the ancient patriarch's doleful
dirge is familiar to ears, and finds its sad echo
in our sorrowing hearts. 1t utters the lament OF
| the desolations of death and the devastations Of
| the grave. With what pathetic pertinency does
| the dismal strain come home to ourselves. Not
week ago, while the sympathy of nature was ex-
pressed in weeping skies, we gathered about the
early grave Of the gentle and amiabe maiden and
to-day, under sombre clouds, we are engaged in
the obseques of one, who though comparatively
| stranger in our society, is we'll known TO us as
the gallant soldier, and the honored and useful
citizen, worn down to death in the prime OF man.
hood by the resistless ravages of nsdious disease
In whatever shape the Great Destroyer comes
whether with the swoop Of sudden doom, or IN
the torturing delay ofgradual app .oach-his work
is terrible and agonizing. What tmortal OF US may
refuse to be serious in the presence of the ruin he
has wrought, any more than he can hesitate to Of
fer tenderest sympathy to those his desolating
stroke has called more Immediately and acutely
to grieve?
shall make no apology, as a minister of reli.
gion, for taking advantage of this affecting and
melancholy scene, WI en- your minds are solemn
and 70 lr sympathes tende:, to urge upon your
intelligent consideration, M brothers, few plain
and practical reflections suggested by the text.
For whatever offices the servant Of revealed truth
may render at such time, it is manifest that these
can in no wise affect the dead His discourse
must contemplate the admonition and consolation
u "Isan M V diesi" This is predcable of each de-
scendant of Him, whose original transgression
drought death into the world and all our Woe"
Concerning two only of all the race has any differ
ent record been composed. And what is it to die?
Reason tells US that our nature is dual-body and
spirit. The Scriptures the fountain OF infallible
instruction, taket for granted and perpetualy i'm.
ply it. God formed mans "body out of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into it living Sout."
Jesus Christ bids us "fear notthem which kill the
body, and are not able to kill the soul." "At
DEATH" says the Royal Preacher. 1.-THE dust re-
turns to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto
God who gave it." Upon both parts Of our ma
ture, the material and immaterial, mighty change
passes at once in the moment of dying. The soul
Is severed from its mortal tenement. That spirit
ual being, whose affections we were used to refer
to the material heart, whose thoughts and fances
we attributed to the material brain is now exist
ing apart from and independent of heart and
brain. The human soul is mystery; invisible
before death-invisible moW. We never knew
how it lived in the body, while we could not doubt
the fact dwelt there and now that it is gone, we
cannot tell how it's departure was taken: Upon
the more familiar body, the more palpable the
more affecting change has been wrought. The
heart is there but it beats no longer; the eye, but
it sees no more and the best loved voice with its
softest and tenderest tones, cannot reach the dull
cold ear of DEATH" Decay begins its silent ruin,
and in process of time little dust scarcely dis
tinguishable from the common clay OF earth, is
all that is left to show where sleeps in the sepul-
chre, what was once an active honored human
frame but what is now of the ''clods of the val
ley" Springs daisies cluster over the spot moss
covers tile marble, earth has mingled with earth,
and dust has returned to dust. How tremendous
the question, "If man die shall he live again?'
"Man gveth up the ghost, and where is hep 1t
is a personal, practical. inquiry. lsubmitto you
reasons and plans and loves and hopes and fears
it is an instructive judgment of our nature, that
death does not suspend its unresting activity.
There is no mortality, no inert slumber, possible
to the soul In the crisis of the iXion Jesus
addressed the spirit of the dying malefactor, who
shalt be with me in Paradise!" Dying Stephen
prayed, "Lord Jesus receive my splrlt!, "Ihe
beggar died." but yet is active and conscious in
the bosom of the patriarch. The rich man makes
his pathetic appeal in conscious agony in Hell, un-
to the Father ofthe Faithful, while his brethren
declares that Ito be at home in the body is to be
absent from the Lord" He had, therefore. de-
sire ITO depart and be with Christ" Into the two
distinct states, the infinitely different places OF