"Who says the Widow's heart must break, The Childless Mother sink?-- A kinder, truer Voice I hear, Which even beside that mournful bier Whence Parent's eyes would hopeless shrink, "Bids weep no more--O heart bereft, How strange, to thee, that sound! A Widow o'er her only Son, Feeling more bitterly alone For friends that press officious round. "Yet is the Voice of comfort heard, For Christ hath touch'd the bier-- The bearers wait with wondering eye, The swelling bosom dares not sigh, But all is still, 'twixt hope and fear. "Even such an awful soothing calm We sometimes see alight On Christian mourners, while they wait In silence, by some Churchyard gate, Their summons to the holy rite." _Christian Year._ Illustration: St. Mildred's Church and Lich-Gate, Whippingham THE LICH-GATE Illustration: Lich-Gate at Yealmton "Any port in a storm, Mr. Ambrose," said old Matthew Hutchison, as with tired feet, and scant breath, he hastened to share the shelter which Mr. Ambrose, the Vicar of the Parish, had found under the ancient and time-worn Lich-gate of St. Catherine's Churchyard. For a few big drops of rain that fell pattering on the leaves around, had warned them both to seek protection from a coming shower. "Ah, yes, my old friend," the Vicar replied, "and here we are pretty near the port to which we must all come, when the storm of life itself is past." "I've known this place,--man and boy,--Mr. Ambrose, for near eighty years; and on yonder bit of a hill, under that broken thorn, I sit for hours every day watching my sheep; but my eye often wanders across here, and then the thought takes me just as you've said it, sir. Ah! it can't be long before Old Matthew will need some younger limbs than these to bring him through the churchyard gate;--that's what the old walls always seem to say to me;--but God's will be done." And as the old Shepherd reverently lifted his broad hat, his few white hairs, stirred by the rising gale, seemed to confirm the truth of his words. "Well, Matthew, I am glad you have learnt, what many are slow to learn, that there are 'Sermons in stones,' as well as in books. Every stone in God's House, and in God's Acre--as our Churchyards used to be called,--may teach us some useful lesson, if we will but stop to read it." "Please, sir, I should like to know why they call the gate at the new churchyard over the hill, a _lich_-gate;--these new names puzzle a poor man like me[1]." "The name is better known in some parts of the country than it is here; but it is no new name, I assure you, for in the time of the Saxons, more than thirteen hundred years ago, it was in common use; but I will tell you all about this, and some other matters connected with the place where we now stand."