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    retreat of the thoughtful ; it has a solitude of its own , neither dreary nor oppressive ; a holy and gentle stillness , which is felt by every one that passes by . It was in a season and day of the year auspicious to such influences ; the red leaves were just beginning to whisper and fall ; the breathing of nature was like an universal sigh ; the evening clouds were hurrying to the west , to float once more in the sunset radiance ; and all was still , as the

    decay that wears the marble of . the tombs . The pale monuments rose around me , telling of the dead , not so much what they were as what they ought to have been ; but I was less moved by all , their legends of vanity or affection , than by one small stone which hardly rose above its bed of green . It was the memorial of that child who perished in the infancy and innocence of existence ; leaving no more traces of himself among the living than the cloud that wanders and melts away in the blue heavens .

    " I could not help meditating on the effects of time . At the time when the leaves , which I saw falling around me , were opening , this child was in the brightness of its rising . Now , it was gathered * dust to dust . ' Then it was taken from the living , and the parents refused all comfort both of God and man ; now , most of those who shed tears for his early departure had forgotten where they had laid him ; and the parents themselves treasured his memory with far more tenderness than gloom . Had they not the same

    consolations then ? Had any visible angel , since , said to them that he was not here , but had risen ? Was hot the sun of righteousness shining as brilliantly then upon the world as now ? I felt that time had done what religion then could not do : what religion might then have done , had it been intimate to the heart- For it is designed to remove the terrors of the grave ; and , instead of throwing Ourselves open to the accidents and misfortunes of life ,

    we should take the consolation God has offered , and bind it to our souls . We should not allow ourselves to be entirely passive in the day of trial . We should exert all the energy of our nature , touched and quickened by religion . If our hearts are strung to the trials of life , like a fine instrument , their tones will be inspiring ; but give them up to the influences of the world , and they are all sadness , like the harp of the winds , on which the passing breeze makes what melody it will .

    " And yet it would seem as if the anguish of sorrow was almost as deep as if our religion never had come . The tears flow as fast and freely as they did two thousand years ago ; but then immortality was like some star which shone , unregarded , in the heaven . Now its periods have been measured ; its vastness revealed , and it has been made a guide to wanderers on the sea . Still , we regard the future with uneasiness and dread , * we set our affections on perishing things , and are miserable when we lose them . When our friends are living and happy , we feel as if they were immortal ; when they are gone , we mourn for them as if they were lost for ever . €

    * I saw the book of ^ nature sp read open before me , as I stood in this place of death ; and it seemed as if I could read better things on its illuminated page . It is a revelation of God , like Christianity . If our Saviour told his disciples to gather instruction from the lowly flowers , there must be something taught in all the grand and beautiful works of God . I cannot believe that the sun and moon have shone six thousand years merely to enlighten the world , or that the planets wheel through their bewildering paths only to

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    810 Offering of Sympathy to Parents . V

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 810, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/14/