boughs of a venerable oak, and there the remains were followed by a silent, thoughtful and solemn company of emigrants, thus so forcibly reminded that they too were travelers to that land "from whose bourne there is no return." The minister improved the occasion to deliver to us an impressive sermon as we sat around that new made grave in the wilderness, so well calculated to impress upon the mind the incalculable importance of seeking another and better country, where there is no sickness and no death.
I had often witnessed the approach of death; sometimes, marking his progress by the insidious work of consumption; and, at others, assailing his victim in a less doubtful manner. I had seen the guileless infant, with the light of love and innocence upon its face, gradually fade away, like a beautiful cloud upon the sky melting into the dews of heaven, until it disappeared in the blue ethereal. I had beheld the strong man, who had made this world all his trust, struggling violently with death, and had heard him exclaim in agony, "I will not die." And yet death relinquished not his tenacious grasp upon his victim. The sound of the hammer and the plane have ceased for a brief space; the ploughman has paused in the furrow, and even the school boy with his books and satchel has stood still, and the very atmosphere has seemed to assume a sort of melancholy tinge, as the tones of the tolling bell have come slowly, sol-
