the same principle, may deny decent burial to a brother. It may see useless expense in the shroud, waste of wood in the coffin, usurpation of soil in the narrow cell of the deceased. There is, indeed, a moral principle connected with the protection of the grave, which, if given up, must inevitably recoil upon the society by whom it has been abandoned.
The character of a place of burial, the consideration or neglect it receives, the nature of the attention bestowed on it, are all intimately connected with the state of the public mind on many important subjects. There is very little danger in this country of superstitions connected with the grave. What peril there is lies on the other side. Is there no tendency to a cold and chilling indifference upon such subjects among our people? And yet a just consideration of Death is one of the highest lessons that every man needs to learn. Christianity, with the pure wisdom of Truth, while it shields us on one hand from abject, cowardly fear, on the other hand is ever warning us alike against brutal indifference, or the confidence of blind presumption. With all the calmness of Faith, with all the lowliness of Humility, with all the tenderness of Charity, and with the undying light of heavenly Hope at her heart, the Christian Church sits watching beside the graves of her children.
The oldest tomb belonging to the good people of this little town lies within the bounds of the Episcopal Church-yard, and bears the date of 1792. It was a child who died of the smallpox. Close at hand is another stone bearing a date two years later, and marking the grave of the first adult who fell among the little band of colonists, a young man drowned while bathing in the lake—infancy and youth were buried before old age. At
