Morning journal and courier., 1889-07-18
THE GRAVE OF DIR. BURTON.
"Until the Day Break, and the Shad-
Eloa Avvav.,s

THE GRAVE OF DIR. BURTON.
"Until the Day Break, ana the Shad-
ows Flee Away.o
The many friends in this city of the late
DIR. Burton, who warmly cherish the memory
of that genial, gifted and eloquent pastor
and preacher, and the many who were priv
LEGGED to hear his Lyman Beecher lectures
here at Marquand chapel, will be gratifed to
read the following, taken from the Hartford
Times of Tuesday.
Among the many impressive and variously
beautiful monuments in the lovely overlook
ing grounds of Cedar Hill, none marks more
fttingly a fttingly chosen resting-place
than the rather low, unobtrusive, but simple
and massive granite pile at the grave of DR..
Burton. 1t is not shaft or column. It
does not rival in aspiration the soaring
shafts which diversity with varied stateli-
mesa the green upper swells of that beautiful
metropolis. The very location itself Is
modest, somewhat retiring-less ele-
waited than some of the more conspicu
GUS slopes, now 80 thickly populated. The
monument is marked more by breadth and
solidity than by height; it is In form like
| some huge but symmetrical and handsome
sarcophagus, and that Is technically the name
of the design. Lying to the eastward of the
| east drive, the grave rests In the edge of the
| shadow of a majestic maple. Natures own
towering symmetrical monument, which
stands like sentinel to mark in summers
verdure and winters cold nakedness, the
chosen spot where nature takes back to her.
self the earthly part of him who 30 we'll loved
her: the sturdy Christian teacher who was
| in reality not less poet than preacher, and
who 80 unshrinkingly sounded the hidden
depths of his own soul to find out, if possi-
| BILE, the mysterious truth about the meaning
of life and what there is Gf aught) to look
| ahead to.
On that peaceful lawn.like expanse, less
elevated than the rolling heights just west of
it, but high enough to overlook the broad
and smiling Connecticut river valley, even
| to the far eastern horizon hill range four or
| five leagues away, and the city, nearer by,
| with its towering tops and gilded dome, rests
the massive, simple, tasteful granite monu.
| figure is sculptured palm leaf, at the top
with, beneath that, line of polished letters
! in relief, containing the doctors favorite
passage, from the Canticles q, ~
"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away
Nothing more on that main face of the
monument but the single name, carved in
polished relief In the center of the broad open
plinth:
On the opposite side, carved on the die, is the
name Nathaniel J. Burton, and under it are the
81 sSe earthly and Departure
Such is the monument. Simple, individu-
allied, strong; it ftly commentaries the
sturdy Christian and sturdy man whose name
| it bears. If 1t broadens out beyond the mar
rowly rigid lines of the old-style headstone it
| but the better represents the large spirit 1t
commemorates-a soul who chafed in the
rigid limitations of any and every creed and,
while voicing his small estimate of all such
| symbols by declaring readiness to sign any
or all of them, took good care to add that he
| would do it with his own mental annotations
and additions.
Burton! Only so lately gone from us; only
| two years! yet, In some moods of thinking, it
| seem an age-and in others but as yesterday.
His brother minister, Twitchell, musingly
said, looking houghtfully from freshly
made little grave, where last Saturday he
had performed the last religious rites, over
| to that tree shaded monument, "There is DR..
| Burton's gravel and there, near by, is DR..
| Gage's--." He did not finish the
sentence there was no need; the thought, in
| every heart, utters itself: How soon shall I,
| too, follow! HE cometh forth like flower,
and ia cut down, he feeth also as a shadow,
and continueth not"
| The great question ever haunted DR.. Bur-
| ton. No man pondered more deeply, more
courageously and unshrinkingly, the world
| old problem, "But man dieth, and wasteth
away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and
| whore is herr eff man die, shall he live
agains"
To that momentous question, still anxious
| ly asked in secret by millions who outwardly
accept the creeds as all satisfying, but who
l at heart yesrn, as the world has long yearned,
| for the vital living faith born of contem-
poraneous proofs, DR.. Burton found his
strongest answer in his own spiritual intu-
itions. His sermons sometimes grew sud-
| denly luminous and grand, and he himself
| seemed lifted up, almost TRANSPORTED, In the
| inspirational perceptions and great utter
| ances that scorned the limitations and the
poverty of the written page, and, lifting him
l out of himself, burst forth in living and
| quickening afirmations of the actual per-
sonal presence, then and there, of radiant
| spirits of the departed. 1t seemed as il they
had returned to speak as with Pentecostal
| tongues of fame, In words which leapt liv-
| ing from the lips of that inspired apostle and
proclaim that there are no dead, that inspir-
alton is perpetual fact, and that the de-
parted are living and can and do come backi
Those were the potent, the moving utter
| ances of DIR. Burton from the pulpit. is
there any reason to say that they were not
inspired of realities seen, or at least felt, as
/ distinctly as Peter and James and John were
made aware of the presence of Moses and
Elias, talking with Jesus, on the mountainl
At any rate they fell upon DR.. Buttons
| hearers with living power. Men spoke of
them, long after, almost with bathed breath.
He has gone, himself, at last-gone into the
| realities of the next life, to see the reality
himself. We cannot make him dead. No
man was ever harder to kill. His
strong individuality SO asserted itself
without his consciousness of the fact,
upon all his friends, and in such
shining and noble ways, that 1t seems as
| easy to blot out the sun from heaven as to
believe that he has persisted, as an individ-
ual soul, out of the universe. But We have
| lost his visible presence here. We shall
meet no more that lofty, kindly, inquiring,
penetrating personality. He has left forever
| his seemingly endless misty self suestionings
and searchipgs of the visible world and the
minds of his fellow men for light on the
main question. No more seeing Through a
glass, darkly-but now face to. face" The
| terest when such minds as Burton join the
great majority.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee
away"
A striking line indeed. DR.. Burton ad-
mired it. He got his idea of It, for a monu-
mental use, from discovering it carved on q
mural tablet In Westminster Abbey.
| We may well believe that for him the
shadows have already fed. We may feel
that he sees, now, that the night time was
the shadow life of Earth; that 1t was day
break when he left the poor mortal body and
all the anxious questionings and misty prob
ings-sll the wavering lights 80 mixed with
giant phantasmal broken-spectre glooms and
nebulous fears.
He was in several respects great man.
Doubtless few of us really knew him--really
understood him at his full worth. 1t was
marked distinction for place like Hartford
| to possess at one time two such men in
| the pulpit as Bushnell and Burton. They
| were unlike in many respects, but
| alike in courageous seeking after Truth
and following her shining and
| oftentimes elusive garments even
though they led the seeker out beyond the
little palings of his creed. Some, who did
not understand the somber moods which
sometimes overshadowed DIR. Burton's natur
ally joyous lat times almost riotously joy
ous) real nature, never suspected that his
spells of gloom, 30 curiously marked and de-
fined, were due to peculiar constitutional in
born physiological idosyncrasies and bodily
conditions. How awfully detected he was in
those moods-to what depths of despair he
| sometimes sank-was known only to two or
three. He came out of them bright and
cheerful again. He was at heart joyous
man. Even his interpretive soul scare h.
ings, grown at last to be habitual, did not
II