The hardy Northman with trembling finger points to the mouldering frame work of humanity, and shudders as he cries—“_Lo! there is death!_”—and the polished Greek smiles delightedly on the faultless statue of the lovely woman with the infant sleeping on her breast, as he also cries—“_Lo! there is death!_”—yet both alike with reverence do lay their final offering before his gloomy shrine.—The squalid Esquimaux scoops out the cavern in the never melting snows, for the frozen form whose conflicts with the grizzly bear and shuddering cold are done—and the mild Hindoo, with affection, feeds the funeral pyre, and as the fragrant column does arise, cries—“Soul of my brother—immortal soul, ascend!”—The red man, in the far distant prairie’s lonely wilds, pillows the head of the warrior-chief upon his slain desert steed within its mound, while the bronzed pioneer, throwing aside his axe and rifle, hastily dashes away the tear as he inhumes beneath its flowery bed his scar-marked comrade’s form. The secluded village hamlet, with pious care, within the quiet grove, encloses a resting-place for its silent few, disappearing at long intervals;—and here those great living cities have chosen this silent city for their dead, falling like the forest leaves in autumn. For the great army, who must ere long, march forth to ground their arms before the grim and ghastly Conqueror, ’twere difficult to find more beautiful and lovely resting place. E’en the sad mourner lingers as he beholds its broad and lovely lawns, stretched out in calm serenity before him;—its sylvan waters in their glassy stillness; its antique elms, arching with extended branches the long secluded lanes; its deep romantic glens; its rolling mounds, and all its varied scenery, ere with a softened sadness he turns him to his desolate and melancholy home. Oh! spirits of our departed ones! We know that you have gone forth from your human habitations, and that we shall behold your loved forms no more forever. Oh! therefore will we lay your deserted temples within this consecrated ground, and, in imagination, fondly see you sleeping still in tranquillity beneath its green and silent sward.