The cemeteries.
--Were it not for the sad memories evoked by so many visible tokens of the presence of the angel of death, we know not any places that can be visited, at the present time, with more profit than the cemeteries used for the interment of the dead of this city.
Next to a pleasant, happy life, the heart of man naturally desires some quiet, shady resting place for the body when it shall have ceased its striving and labors on the busy earth.
Not alone to riches, case, and pleasure, do contemplative minds look, but to some peaceful bed, where the noise and turmoil of their crowding, jostling survivers may not echo over the mould raised to their memory — some secluded nook, sheltered from the bleak north winds, and in summer redolent of perfumes of flowers and blossoms, and the sweet minstrelsy of birds — or a couch upon some river's bank, where, in the distance, are seen glancing sails and tiny waves, flashing back from their mirrored surface the bright beams of the sun, and the groves, orchards, and roofs of happy homes, where the fragrant breath of the warm south wind is ladened with the softened music of lowing herds and the chime of distant bells.
Amid such scenes it would seem almost a pleasure to ‘"shuffle off this mortal coil"’ and be at rest.
Happy he who can look forward to such a rest, certain of the eternal repose of the immortal as well as the material man. Amid such scenery lies the bodies of those buried in three cemeteries adjacent to this city.
A beautiful feature is it in the faith of the pious Catholic which, on All
Saint's Day, prompts a visit to the still abodes of the departed dead.
Many, indeed, are the hallowed memories which on that day are called up in bright and beautiful reality to endear the dust of those who, when living, were beloved, and who now, though slumbering in the narrow house, are revivified by the magic fancies of affection.
Nothing is better adapted for exciting purifying reflections than a visit to the cemeteries; and the writer — all-be-it of no particular faith — can but wish that his fellow-citizens were all
Catholics, at least to the extent of paying devotion on an All saint's Day to the memory of those that ‘"be gone before."’ To us it seems that all the scenes to be witnessed at the cemeteries are capable of conveying instruction which should make the visitor wiser and better ere he leaves.
