OCR Text |
Show 1836- 1837] Flagg's Far West 325 XXIX " Ay, but to die, and go we know not where!" Measure far Measure. " Plains immense, interminable mgads, And . vast savannas, where the wand'ring ere, Unfee'd, is in a verdant ocean lost" THOMSON. " Ye shall have miracles; ay, sound ones too, Seen, heard, attested, everything but true." MOORS. " Call in the barber! If the tale be long, He'll cut it short, I trust." MlDDLKTON. THERE are few sentiments of that great man Benjamin Franklin for which he is more to be revered than for those respecting the burial- place of the departed. 197 The graveyard is, and should ever be deemed, a holy spot; consecrated, not by the cold formalities of unmeaning ceremony, but by the solemn sacredness of the heart. Who that has committed to earth's cold bosom the relics of one dearer, perchance, than existence, can ever after pass the burial-ground with a careless heart. There is nothing which more painfully jars upon my own feelings - if I may except that wanton desecration of God's sanctuary in some sections of our land [ 74] for a public commitia - than to see the grave- yard slighted and abused. It is like wounding the memory of a buried friend. And yet it is an assertion which cannot be refuted, that, notwithstanding the reverence which, as a people, we have failed not to manifest for the memory of our dead, the same delicate regard and obsequy is not with us observed in the sacred rites as among the inhabitants of the Eastern hemisphere. If, indeed, we may be permitted to gather up an opinion 197" I will never, if possible, pass a night in any place where the graveyard is neglected." Franklin has no monument!- FLAOG. |