And there too, amid the gathered crowd of the dead, was all that remained of the mortal part of one whose voice had been heard a hundred times amid those grounds repeating the solemn burial service of our Church. But years have passed away since that service was repeated over him. Well do I recollect the melancholy occasion, when the cold icy clod of winter fell upon his coffin, as the affecting words were pronounced--"_We commit his body to the ground: earth to earth--ashes to ashes, dust to dust._" I could not pass through those grounds without paying a visit to the grave of the buried minister, for he had not only shed spiritual light upon my path, but was united to me by the strong ties of kindred and blood. He was my own brother! The grass was green over his grave; for it had flourished there undisturbed for more than twelve years. But no spot in all that ground seemed so sacred, or so pregnant with power to awaken deep emotions and melt my soul into tenderness, as my mother's grave! What a volume of past recollections does every visit to that grave call up! What hallowed thoughts and sacred remembrances stand associated with the dust that slumbers in that narrow house? Can I ever forget a sainted mother's love! Can I ever forget the hour she took my tiny hand into hers and led me to a secret place there to pray for me and to teach me how to lift up my infant voice to the Creator of the skies? Can I ever forget how each night and morning in childhood's happy days I knelt at her side to repeat "OUR FATHER?" Can I ever forget how in my childish sorrows her voice soothed my distress, and her bright beaming smile spread a sunshine around my path? Can I ever forget how, when sickness came upon me, and the scorchings of fever sent the blood boiling through my veins, she hung over me like a guardian angel--laid her soft hand upon my burning brow, and night after night sat and watched by my pillow? Can I ever forget that look of holy rapture and unutterable gratitude that lit up her countenance when the constraining love of Christ first led her unworthy child to go forward and take hold of the horns of the altar? And above all, can I ever forget her prayers and solemn counsel, her holy trust in Christ and upward looking towards the summit of the everlasting hills, when the icy hand of death was upon her, and her hold upon life was breaking away? And could I stand by her grave, and not have these recollections come thronging upon me? But I must stop. I had almost forgotten that I was writing for the eye of others. Did I not know that many into whose hands these remarks will fall, have also stood by _a mother's grave_, and thought and felt unutterable things, and will therefore appreciate the source and sacredness of these feelings to which I have been almost involuntarily led to give expression, I would immediately erase them from this sheet.