Then with a deep distinctness he made answer, Distinct and slow, looking from whence I pointed, Full in my face again, and what he said Thrill'd through my very soul--"_That's what we are!_" So I was answer'd. Sermons upon death I had heard many. Lectures by the score Upon life's vanities. But never words Of mortal preacher to my heart struck home With such convicting sense and suddenness As that plain-spoken homily, so brief, Of the unletter'd man. "That's what we are!"-- Repeating after him, I murmur'd low In deep acknowledgment, and bow'd the head Profoundly reverential. A deep calm Came over me, and to the inward eye Vivid perception. Set against each other, I saw weigh'd out the things of time and sense, And of eternity;--and oh! how light Look'd in that truthful hour the earthly scale! And oh! what strength, when from the penal doom Nature recoil'd, in _His_ remember'd words: "_I am the Resurrection and the Life_." And other words of that Divinest Speaker (Words to all mourners of all times address'd) Seem'd spoken to me as I went along In prayerful thought, slow musing on my way-- "_Believe in me_"--"_Let not your hearts be troubled_"-- And sure I could have promised in that hour, But that I knew myself how fallible, That never more should cross or care of this life Disquiet or distress me. So I came, Chasten'd in spirit, to my home again, Composed and comforted, and cross'd the threshold That day "a wiser, _not_ a sadder, _woman_." C. EDMUND BURKE.[14] Burke died in 1797, and yet, after the lapse of almost half a century, the world is eager to treasure every recollection of his name. This is the true tribute to a great man, and the only tribute which is worth the wishes of a great man. The perishable nature of all the memorials of human hands has justly been the theme of every moralist, since tombs first bore an image or an inscription. Yet, such as they are, they ought to be given; but they are all that man can give. The nobler monument must be raised by the individual himself, and must be the work of his lifetime; its guardianship must be in the hands, not of sacristans and chapters, but in those of the world; his panegyric must be found, not in the extravagance or adulation of his marble, but in the universal voice which records his career, and cherishes his name as a new stimulant of public virtue.