ose persons to whom duty has
never been matter of laborious speculation, and who have no intimations
of the power to act and to resist which is in them, till they are
summoned to put it forth. I could illustrate this by many examples,
which are now before my eyes; but it would detain me too long from my
principal subject which was to suggest reasons for believing that the
encomiastic language of rural tomb-stones does not so far exceed reality
as might lightly be supposed. Doubtless, an inattentive or ill-disposed
Observer, who should apply to surrounding cottages the knowledge which
he may possess of any rural neighbourhood, would upon the first impulse
confidently report that there was little in their living inhabitants
which reflected the concord and the virtue there dwelt upon so fondly.
Much has been said in a former Paper tending to correct this
disposition; and which will naturally combine with the present
considerations. Besides, to slight the uniform language of these
memorials as on that account not trustworthy would obviously be
unjustifiable.

Enter a church-yard by the sea-coast, and you will be almost sure to
find the tomb-stones crowded with metaphors taken from the sea and a
sea-faring life. These are uniformly in the same strain; but surely we
ought not thence to infer that the words are used of course, without any
heartfelt sense of their propriety. Would not the contrary conclusion be
right? But I will adduce a fact which more than a hundred analogical
arguments will carry to the mind a conviction of the strength and
sanctity of those feelings which persons in humble stations of society
connect with their departed friends and kindred. We learn from the
Statistical Account of Scotland that in some districts, a general
transfer of inhabitants has taken place; and that a great majority of
those who live, and labour, and attend public worship in one part of the
country, are buried in another. Strong and unconquerable still continues
to be the desire of all, that their bones should rest by the side of
their forefathers, and very poor persons provide that their bodies
should be conveyed if necessary to a great distance to obtain that last
satisfaction. Nor can I refrain from saying that this natural
interchange by which the living inhabitants of a parish have small
knowledge of the dead who are buried in their church-yard is grievously
to be lamented, wherever it exists. For it cannot fail to preclude not