Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1874-09-11
POSr-MORTEM VENERATIUN.

One of the idiosyncracies Of our common ma
ture is, that we seem to have more considera-
tiou for man after he is dead than while he is
alive. Very often We neglect and disparage
him in the flesh, and esteem and eulogize him
!" ,'I the e eraye. Examination has more power
than great deeds to make heroes, for the shadow
Of the tomb is glamour to the living. Perfect
sppreciation belongs to obituaries. The earliest
murmur of fame is frequently the echo OF the
first earth thrown on the cof6n-lid.
This disposition to delay honor and withhold
affection for the advent Of the undertaker-this
propensity to retain chaplets for the sake of
employing them as immortees-ls witnessed
iu mortuary celebration. We must com
pound with our conscience for our disregard
of the living by our attention to the dead.
By some irrational casuistry we must conclude
that we make amends to kiud hearts We have
rejected by piling marble mockeries above their
silent pulses. Only by such assumption can
we explain the socitudc and veneration that
have been showu in all countries aud 10 all ages
for the ifeless body. Race, cline or creed has
made little difference in what might be called
the universal corporeal superstition. However
hostile, unjust or cruel human nature may be
to one OF its CO. heirs, its tendency is to the
binignant, even to the sentimental, when good
offices have been made superhuous by a funeral
Respect may be slender or null for the breathing,
thinking, sensitive, sympathic form, but GER
tain sacredness attaches thereto the moment 1t
becomes clay. The divine spark, the godIike
clement as it is styled. appears to count for
nothing, save by its absence.
Pagans and Christians, Socinians and Scrip
turalists, agree in this post mortem veneratlon.
No pcople have as yet been discovered, what
ruh hau
had sepulchral rites, aud associated them with
certain degree of solemnity. Indeed, sepul-
ture may be regarded as the mark of the hu
man species. Where that IS omitted the trace
CT humanity is lost, since no order of the low
or animals evinccs care tor the dead. The an
nails of the race are revealed by the vestiges OF
tombs which aDtedate by ages the historic pc
rod, and which still puzzle the learned of
archpologis2s. We are connected with the
past, the dimmest and remotest, by an endless
lice of graves aud all We know of countless
nations is that they died aud were buried This
revolving ball, it's hundreds of millions of 10
habitants, is but vast graveyard. The living
bear but an in6nitesilnal proper to the dead,
whose remains are incorporated with every foot
of soil we call our own. We are as a handful
of men standing between the billions gone
aud the billions yet to cOme--On one hand the
inheritors of Time, and on the other the heirs
of Eternity.
lutcrmeuts, reasoning by induction, have
almost always been associated with some form
of religion, and their rites have often been
preserved when the faith which inspired them
has been forgotten. Not few Of the funeral
ceremonies of the present day are aoaohrouistlc
because they have been borrowed without un
dcrstaudiDg from di ferent part, and are mean.
ingess because the link is broken that bound
Them 10 Significance. -Huper's Magazine.