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 grave-yard 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 from circumstances of daily notoriety, it would seem that the plat of ground appropriated as a cemetery in many of the villages of our land was devoted to this most holy of purposes solely because useless for every other; as if, after seizing upon every spot for the benefit of the living, this last poor _remnant_ was reluctantly yielded as a resting-place for the departed. And thus has it happened that most of the burial-grounds of our land have either been located in a region so lone and solitary, "You scarce would start to meet a spirit there," or they have been thrust out into the very midst of business, strife, and contention; amid the glare of sunshine, noise, and dust; "the gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day," with hardly a wall of stones to protect them from the inroads of unruly brutes or brutish men. It is as if the rites of sepulture were refused, and the poor boon of a resting-place in the bosom of our common mother denied to her offspring; as if, in our avarice of soul, we grudged even the last narrow house destined for all; and {75} fain would resume the last, the only gift our departed ones may retain. Who would not dread "_to die_" and have his lifeless clay deposited thus! Who would not, ere the last fleeting particle of existence had "ebbed to its finish," and the feeble breathing had forsaken its tenement for ever, pour forth the anguish of his spirit in the melancholy prayer, "When breath and sense have left this clay, In yon damp vault, oh lay me not! But kindly bear my bones away To some lone, green, and sunny spot."