On a recent tour through one of the Northern States, I stopped at a village situated on a creek, which afforded numerous and extensive advantages and facilities for manufacturing purposes. There was nothing in the immediately surrounding scenery particularly calculated to interest a traveller. The whole aspect of the country as far as the eye could roam was rough and broken, and yet withal so tame and uniform, that one soon grew weary in looking at it. In like manner, the village itself presented nothing to the eye of a stranger particularly striking or attractive. In the construction of its buildings, the laying out of its streets,

The change which time produces.

and all its various arrangements, convenience and economy had most manifestly been consulted rather than taste or elegance. To the ordinary traveller, therefore, there was nothing connected with this place calculated to inspire him with a wish to linger in its neighbourhood. But I had spent several years of my childhood there, and the sight of this village, as I approached it, awakened feelings of a peculiar character, and essentially different from those which would have been awakened in the bosom of a stranger.

Many years had elapsed since my last visit to this place. Its general aspect had undergone very little change, but I soon perceived that its inhabitants were to me an almost entire new race of beings.

Having stopped at one of the public inns, I immediately went to visit several spots which were once familiar to me, and with which were associated the fond remembrance of other days, and of scenes for ever past. As I leisurely strolled through the village, there was one thing that struck me very painfully. I could see no names on the signs, and but few faces in the street, that I had ever before known. To all whom I met I was a stranger, and no one appeared to recognise me. At length it occurred to me, that there was one habitation where I should probably find a number of my old acquaintances" the house appointed for all living." Thither, therefore, I directed my steps.

I have often thought it a fit and becoming expression of our regard for our deceased friends, to see that the place of their interment is guarded from the profane intrusion of the thoughtless, and the unhallowed tread of brute beasts. Great attention had been paid to this by the former inhabitants of this village. The burial ground was a short distance from the village, in a secluded and rural spot. It was in the form of an oblong square, and protected by a strong enclosure. On each side of the square various kinds of trees were planted, and especially those which have long been regarded as peculiarly appropriate to shade the ashes

Reflections in the graveyard.

of the departed. The avenue which led from the highway to this resting place of the dead was studded on either side with a row of weeping willows, which hung their drooping branches so mournfully over the head of him who passed beneath, that no one could reach the place of interment without feeling that he was treading on holy ground.

As I walked up this avenue and entered that sacred area, where, in former years, I had so often heard the solemn sound of "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" borne on the air; and where I had beheld weeping mourners gather in silence around the newly excavated grave, to see the last remains of some dear friend let down into its dark and solitary abode, I could not but stop, and gaze in pensive meditation upon the " heaped hillocks" of earth that lay thick around me. "How populous," thought I, "this subterranean city!' How sure its annual increase of inhabitants! Notwithstanding the living seek through monumental stones to keep up and perpetuate the distinctions which existed in life, yet, in truth and reality, how are they all lost in the grave! The beggar and the rich man lie equally low, and the worm feeds alike sweetly upon them. The several paths of that busy multitude that are moving in so many directions through yonder streets, will all terminate here. O, if this thought could be ever fresh in their minds, how would it abate the ardour with which they pursue the perishing vanities of time! How would it dissipate worldly mindedness, moderate the love of pleasure, and make sensuality itself tremble amid its guilty indulgencies!"

As I passed along from grave to grave, the names that I read upon the stones called up the images of a numerous group that I had once known. A plain marble slab that lay near me apprized me that I was treading over the ashes of one whose countenance and character I recollected very distinctly. He was a small thin man, and well known to all the village. Professionally he was an apothecary, and for many long years had he dealt out medicine to heal the

The grave of the apothecary.

The beautiful female.

The trifler.

sickness of others. Though thin and sallow, he had been so long at his post, and was by night and by day surrounded by so many powerful agents to ward off disease, that many supposed that he had discovered the true elixir of life, and could bid defiance to the shafts of mortality. What a commentary did that stone read to me upon the vanity of all such expectations! His medicine availed nothing when God remanded the dust, out of which he had been formed, to its native inanimate state.

A little farther, and I read upon a splendid monument— the name of one who, in early life, had figured largely in the gay world. Beauty of person, and elegance of manners, joined with uncommon brilliancy of intellect, made her an object of universal attraction. One of the wealthiest young men in the country succeeded in gaining her hand. They lived in great splendour, and for a while their path seemed strewed with flowers; but soon some hidden source of sorrow stole the colour from her cheek, and spread a shade of gloom over her once bright countenance. Common report declared that the cause of her unrevealed trouble was conjugal infidelity on the part of him who had won and wed her. Whatever that cause was, it drove her to the foot of the cross for blessedness, and in Jesus Christ she found a faithful and unfailing friend. Many years had passed away since I had heard her name pronounced, and when I read it on that proud monument, I could not but exclaim, "How valueless and unmeaning does all this sculptured marble that covers thy poor dust appear to thee now! And if, through infinite mercy, thou art among the blood-washed throng around the throne, how loud are thy praises to the Eternal, for that bitter drug mixed in the cup of thy earthly happiness, which made the pleasures of the world pall on thy taste, and led thee to the well of salvation in quest of the waters of life!"

Upon another stone, I read a name that made me feel more solemn than I had before since I entered within these precincts of the dead. That name was Harry C. He

The grave of an aged saint.

The Lindsley family.

had been all his life a ceaseless trifler. Possessing naturally great humour, and a talent for keen, sarcastic repartee, he cultivated and cherished this propensity, to the neglect of every thing sober and serious. He could not go to the house of God, nor even to a funeral, without finding something to make all around him laugh. But now, there he lay before me in the silence of the grave! His laugh was over-his jokes were done-the worm was feeding on his dissolved frame, and his soul was in a world where all was sober and serious reality.

As I walked onward a little farther, I found myself standing over the grave of one whose venerable form and silver locks I had often seen in the house of God. This aged saint was a living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men. While gazing upon the spot where his mouldered ashes reposed, and lifting up my thoughts to the glorious rest upon which he had entered, I could not but say, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Having at length reached a distant corner of the burial ground, I read on four stones that were ranged close to each other,— "Frederick Lindsley, Esq., who departed this life in the 43d year of his age.'

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Mary, relict of Frederick Lindsley, Esq., who fell asleep in Christ' in the 37th year of her age."

“Hezekiah, son of Frederick and Mary Lindsley, who died in the eighth year of his age."

"Mary Anna Lindsley, who died in May, &c. in the 18th year of her age-much beloved in life, lamented in death; her memory will be long cherished on earthher many excellencies can be fully known only in heaven."

“Ah," said I to myself, as I read these names with a throbbing heart, "then they are all gone-they are now a

FAMILY IN ETERNITY-I shall meet them no more till I meet them there."

I had known this family intimately, and spent many happy hours in their society. Their history was one truly