eries of
the philosopher and the adventurer; but the honoured parent, the devoted
child, the philanthropic citizen, are sure of their tribute from all
hearts.

Even if there were a variety of praise proportioned to the diversity of
hearts and minds that utter it, the inscriptions of a cemetery cannot
but breathe a spirit which must animate, more or less, the morals of the
society. For instance, the cemetery of Pere la Chaise utters, from end
to end, one wail. It is all mourning, and no hope. Every expression of
grief, from tender regret to blank despair, is to be found there; but
not a hint of consolation, except from memory. All is over, and the
future is vacant. A remarkable contrast to this is seen in the cemetery
of Mount Auburn, Massachusetts. The religious spirit of New England is
that which has hope for one of its largest elements, and which was
believed by the Puritan fathers to forbid the expression of sorrow. One
of those fathers made an entry in his journal, in the early days of the
colony, that it had pleased God to take from him by an accident his
beloved son Henry, whom he committed to the Lord's mercy;--and this was
all. In a similar spirit are the epitaphs at Mount Auburn framed. There
is a religious silence about the sorrows of the living, and every
expression of joy, thanksgiving, and hope for the dead. One who had
never heard of death, might take this for the seed-field of life; for
the oratory of the happy; for the heaven of the hopeful. Parents invite
their children from the grave to follow them. Children remind their
parents that the term of separation will be short; and all repose their
hopes together on an authority which is to them as stable and
comprehensive as the blue sky which is over all.--What a contrast is
here! and how eloquent as to the moral views of the respective nations!
There is not a domestic attachment or social relation which is not
necessarily modified, elevated, or depressed by the conviction of its
being transient or immortal,--an end or means to a higher end. Though
human hearts are so far alike as that there must be a hope of reunion,
more or less defined and assured, in all who love, and a practical
falling below the elevation of this hope in those even who enjoy the
strongest assurance,--yet the moral notions of any society must be very
different where the ground of hope is taken for granted, and where it is
kept wholly out of sight.

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