pitiation, and that the sacred fire, with its attendant virgins, has, like those misguided hearts, consumed itself to ashes, leaving only for a funereal urn, through everlasting memory of such scenes, the voiceless monument of Stonehenge.

With the fall of the curtain the spell is broken, and the crowd jostle each other as only an American crowd can: one might suppose the house on fire, judging from the eagerness each one shows to reach the open air.

WANDERINGS IN GOD'S ACRE.

"I like the ancient Saxon phrase which calls
The burial-ground God's Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

"God's Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life- alas no more their own."

LONGFELLOW.

“Yes, it is a dreary, miserable night. How the rain pelts! and the drops come down with a roar like the fall of an avalanche. Close the curtains, Juliet, and come to the fire. I never hear such a rain but I think of graves, and how sad and dreary it must be to lie alone, helpless, under such a dark, pitiless, pelting sky. I seem to feel the great drops ooze and sink deep, deeper, until they reach the white, upturned, helpless face that lies beneath the sod. And yet it is a foolish thought to suppose for an instant that those who lie under the green mounds, with their pale, cold hands folded over their stilled hearts, can know aught forevermore of pelting storm, of wrung hearts or suffering bodies. For them the storms of sky and earth have ceased; and yet all our affections, interests, and memories are so linked with these same perishable bodies, that only the sharp scythe of death can convince us of their mutability, and under its heavy blows the mists fall from our eyes, and we behold the glory of the immortal part-that which never dies, but which in its new robes of royalty assumes its true and proper attributes; the mystery thus revealed through agonizing tears becoming our sublimest consolation.

"Talking of graves reminds me that to-morrow is All-Saints', the day set apart for so many years to the memory of the dead, and exclusively devoted by thousands to prayers for the souls' repose, and the decoration of the all of earth that they still can claim beyond dispute as their own, until the angel's voice annuls even that title.

"Sad work the storm is making with many preparations for to-morrow. The exquisite garlands, crosses, bouquets, etc., that are generally arranged, will, I fear, ere morning, be as withered and fallen from their loveliness as those for whose love they are gathered and for whose memory they were wreathed. It is strange what a hold such customs take upon all classes of people; it is one of the proofs that there lies sleeping somewhere, in every nature, a vein of sentiment that only waits an opportunity for utterance. Only this evening, as I sat alone with the Past, I was startled from my reverie by Sam's voice, saying, 'How you like my bouquet, mistress?' and he placed in my hands an exquisite arrangement of immortelles, white roses, and yellow chrysanthemums. Of course I expressed some astonishment at what struck me as a piece of extravagance, knowing how much at this time such a bouquet would cost. Not too much for Marse John,' he replied; 'to-morrow mornin' I'll put it on his tomb, and perhaps he'll know that poor old Sam will never forget the little boy that he nussed and played with dese many years ago; it won't do him any good, maybe, missus, but it does me a heap;' and wiping his eyes and leaving me similarly occupied, he left the room. And so I find that this poor negro has for years saved out of his hard earnings this tribute of love and gratitude to the memory of his young master. Surely it will find a place in the book of the recording angel side by side with the widow's mite. But I am making you sad, child, dwelling on this theme; yet some day, perhaps, you too will understand how natural and comforting it is for those who mourn their own beloved dead to dwell on every little incident which serves to keep us near them; even though

"I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words, the grief I feel,
For words, like nature, half reveal
And half conceal the soul within.""

“No, Aunt Bertha, please don't stop talking; I, too, am in the mood for sad themes, and it is just the night to 'talk of graves and worms and epitaphs.' Such a spirit of discontent and disquietude with everything in life seems to have taken possession of me of late, that such a solemn and thought-suggestive subject will perhaps help to lay the weary spirit. So talk on, and tell me all about this annual custom here and elsewhere:

"And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.'"

"It is indeed sad for one so young to feel so deeply the cares and anxieties of life-to have the heart filled with unappeasable, unattainable longings ; and the harder to bear because you believe that yours is only an exceptional

case

that you are the victim of unfortunate circumstances that have singled you out of thousands who are far more fortunate and happy, without deserving it any better than yourself. Like a young war-horse you champ and fret under the bit and spur that holds you back from leaping the walls of a garden that seems filled with all the requisites for a season of perfect enjoyment, and where you think, if you could only make the bound, if you could clear the bar at once, that you could lie down in perfect rest and ease among the violets and anemones, and leave all carking cares and depressing influences outside the wall, there to wait until the morning wanes into night. All very natural, my love; but well it is for you that the hand which holds the rein knows how far in safety you may roam -sees with a far-searching eye the shattered limbs that might pay the penalty of such a leap; and so, loving you far better than you can possibly love yourself, because disinterestedly, tightens the rein and uses the spur, and will continue so to do until your spirit is brought into subjection to the hand and will that guides both. You cannot point to one man or woman, either from the page of history or from among your own acquaintances, whose life is not shadowed by some cloud, whose heart is not depressed by some sorrow some more, some less, it is true but all with a skeleton in some corner of the house upon which they are forced to look. Your cross-splinters, coming as they have done in the morning of life, should give hope that the noon and evening may be more surely flecked with sunset tints of purple and gold. Now you have the gem of all life's varied gifts whole and safe in your keeping the sweet talisman against all trial-heavenly Hope: as life darkens under the swoop of vultures which fan their dark wings over all at some period of our lives, the bright ministrant pales and flickers like a waning moon, never, it is true, entirely withdrawing her light, but yielding it only in fitful and uncertain beams. I remember hearing you say, some time ago, that you thought the life and career of Goethe had been one, the most enviable and brilliant. Hand me my note-book, and I will read you what he says, in a letter to a friend, of his own experience. Here it is: 'The world has always regarded me as a peculiar favorite of fortune, nor will I complain of my existence, taken as a whole; yet in truth it has been little else than weariness and labor; and I may say that in my five-and-seventy years, I have not enjoyed four weeks of peace and comfort- it was the eternal rolling of the stone.'

"What a commentary upon the vanity of vanities! from the lips of a man, too, so favored with what the world most envies. Renowned and revered by his own country, courted and caressed by crowned heads, by the great and good of every land, all of fame, prosperity, and wealth, crowned by length of years, centred and crowded into this one life; and yet he, the recipient of all, can find no other comparison for the void and weariness it brought him but the labor of Sisyphus-the eternal rolling of the stone! 'Sic transit gloria mundi.'

"Don't understand me, my dear Juliet, as justifying this state of feeling;

because I do not. You must remember, with all this brilliancy of intellect, this wealth of genius, that Goethe lacked the one gift which would have sanctified all the rest. Had he possessed religion, he would have learned the true use of his 'weariness and labors,' and found even in them that 'peace and comfort' which his high position and great attainments failed to yield. So, with all the brilliancy of his career, he groped in Cimmerian darkness, and entered eternity with the cry for 'light! more light!' upon his lips. It is the spirit in which we accept the sweet and bitter, the use we make of the good and evil, that makes or mars our happiness. So, my child, strive to be patient, firm, and hopeful, and never mind how thick seem the clouds, how far away the stars; ever remember that the good God can see through all, and hear, and feel, and direct every beat of your young heart. Don't rebel, but accept cheerfully, resignedly these trials, even as our Lord pressed the crown of thorns upon His own head, and they will bring you the peace which passeth all understanding, and the power to endure patiently, heroically to the end, until, like the sainted and beautiful Cunegunde, in the German legend, you may be able to walk with unshod, unburned feet, the fiery ploughshares which strew life's path.

"But you weary of this long digression from the subject which started our chat to-night; so I will brush up my memory and tell you what I know of the observance of different races and nations in regard to their dead. One might think that the custom can be traced in Greece, Rome, and the East, many centuries anterior to Christianity. The preservation and interment of the remains of the deceased was considered an important religious duty by these people. There is a striking exemplification of this feeling to be found in the story of Antigone, who fell a victim to her sisterly and filial fidelity. Although but a mythological heroine, yet so striking is the morale of her life, that Sophocles has immortalized her in two splendid tragedies, and many authors concur in the belief that Shakspeare held her in mind while portraying the character of Cordelia, in "King Lear," — both devoting their lives to the care and consolation of a father stricken by reverse of fortune, by sorrows and infirmities. But the phase in Antigone's life which bears upon our subject, relates to her brother Polynices, who had fallen by the hand of his brother Eteocles, in a combat which was to decide his right to the throne of Thebes. Creon, the uncle, becoming king by the death of the two young princes, caused the body of Eteocles to be buried with distinguished honors, but forbade every one under pain of death to bury the body of Polynices. Antigone, horrified at the thought of the remains of her beloved brother being mangled and desecrated by vultures, dogs, and wolves, resolved, spite the entreaties of her sister, to brave the danger and bury the body with her own hands. Unfortunately she was discovered in the act, and Creon condemned her to be buried alive for thus impugning his tyrannical edict.

“Artemisia, queen of Cairo, who lived in the fourth century before Christ,

could only find consolation in her grief for the loss of her husband, Mausolus, by bestowing a large amount of her time and means in the erection of a magnificent tomb to his memory. She employed four architects, and the expense of its construction was so great, that when the philosopher Anaxagoras saw it, he exclaimed, 'How much money turned into stones!' This tomb it is that originated the term mausoleum.

"The epitaph of Sophocles, the great Grecian poet, written by Simonides, also proves the love and veneration felt by the ancients for their dead; and the invocation,

'Wind, gentle evergreens, to form a shade
Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid,'

proves the same natural heart instincts as we too possess in our faith in the potency of the voiceless flower to express a love and memory of which they, in their beauty and resurrection-power, are the type. So tenaciously do we cling to the little that is left us of those we mourn, so eagerly do we grasp at every tendril that can send a fibre from our hearts to this, the last earthly tenement of clay, that the mind is constantly busied in devising ways and means to express this unsleeping vigilance. What so expressive of the love ever hovering, of the constant heart-watch above the grave, as the weepingwillow? How its arms bend and sway, as if in eagerness to clasp and hold forever the form that lies so far away beyond their reach! and the dew and rain, as they drop from its leaves - - are they not suggestive emblems of the tears that wake the silent voices of the night? I can imagine nothing sadder to a bereaved heart, no phase in the many dark memories more poignant, than absence from a loved grave- the great black mountain-tops, stretching out their long wizard arms to make the distance more impenetrable, and the ceaseless cry of the ocean's wave, shutting out even the hope of a sound from the bird-voices that build their earth-houses near by. There it lies in his loneliness, perhaps among strangers, a barren, desolate heap of earth; the soil so arid, that even the leaves refuse to stand sentinels. Through the dreary winter days and nights it lies apart, wrapped in its white shroud of snow, down upon which shines the pale cold moon, as if in pity for its isolation. The bright warm days of spring come, and the loving hearts at home remember that these, their gardens of paradise, must not be forgotten; and the grass springs, and the flowers raise their heads and ope their many-colored eyes, and in the long, fair June nights sing a requiem, low and sweet, to their voiceless listeners. But the lonely, neglected grave seems to have no part in the hymn, even as its barren mound has found no hand to express the love and anguish that yearns so hopelessly to make it too bloom like a bed in the garden of Eden, spite of the threatening mountain-tops and the ever-booming waves.

"A distant grave is the polar needle of the heart. It draws, magnetically, the wanderer home, when the earnest petition of some living voice remains