t scraping its feet, and goes down your throat, unwashed, with small
respect for your gentility. You must look abroad, therefore, for some
elements of an unwholesome home: and when, sitting at home, you do so, it
is a good thing if you can see a burial-ground--one of "God's gardens,"
which our city cherishes.

Now, do not look up with a dolorous face, saying, "Alas! these gardens are
to be taken from us!" Let agitators write and let Commissioners report,
let Government nod its good-will, and although all the world may think
that our London burial-grounds are about to be incontinently jacketed in
asphalte, and that we ourselves, when dead, are to be steamed off to
Erith--we are content: at present this is only gossip.(1) On one of the
lowest terraces of hell, says Dante, he found a Cordelier, who had been
dragged thither by a logical demon, in defiance of the expostulations of
St. Francis. The sin of that monk was a sentence of advice for which
absolution had been received before he gave it: "Promise much, and perform
little." In the hair of any Minister's head, and of every Commissioner's
head, we know not what "black cherubim" may have entwined their claws.
There is hope, while there is life, for the old cause. But if those who
have authority to do so really have determined to abolish intramural
burial, let us call upon them solemnly to reconsider their verdict. Let
them ponder what follows.

Two or three years ago, a book, promulgating notions upon spiritual life,
was published in London by the Chancellor of a certain place across the
Channel. It was a clever book; and, among other matter, broached a theory.
"_Our souls,_" the Rev. Chancellor informed us, "_consist of the essence,
extract, or gas contained in the human body_;" and, that he might not be
vague, he made special application to a chemist, who "added some important
observations of his own respecting the corpse after death." But we must
decorate a great speculation with the ornamental words of its propounder.

"The gases into which the animal body is resolved by putrefaction are
ammonia, carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, cyanogen, and sulphureted,
phosphureted, and carbureted hydrogen. The first, and the two last-named
gases, are most abundant." We omit here some details as to the time a body
takes in rotting. "From which it appears, that these noble elements and
rich essences of humanity are too subtle and volatile to continue long
with the corpse; but soon d