sky, the sun, the cloud, the night, the flowers, all, all say DEATH,

Death is everywhere, And "the living know that they must die. A part of the life of the living it is, to know that they must die. Knowledge unheeded, but knowledge still. In the secret core of the heart is the knowledge hid. Covered up with the glittering tinsel of worldly love and hope, and hate, and envy; hidden beneath pride and ambition and earthly desires; envel oped in rioting, excesses, gratified passion, revenge and lust; covered, hidden, enveloped, but knowledge still, for the living know that they shall die. Amid the busy cares, the sinful pleasures, the anxious desires, the guilty passions, the vehement ambitions; the knowledge will unveil itself, it will speak, it will utter forth-death.

Whether amid the crowd, or alone on the pathless waters; whether waking to the realities of brief life, or sleeping amid its dreams; whether early or late, in sorrow or in joy, the knowledge is ever present. Oh! hateful knowledge, how gladly would we escape it. Death, death. To die, to go out. To cease to act, to think, to speak, to enjoy. To stop. To decay. To feed the worms. To disappear. To lose the knowledge of life, and of death, "for the dead know not any thing!"

Oh must we die? These busy thoughts, this reason, this close perception, these eyes, these ears, this love, this hate, this store of dearly-bought knowledge, this longing for life, this eager thirst for happiness, must all these die? This youth, these quick limbs, this intense appreciation of enjoyment, this high health, these full hopes. Must these die. Must I die? Oh God!

The living know that they shall die, and the dead know not anything!" "Oh death what art thou?" and echoless and unanswered the question falls upon the

gaping tomb.

Earth answers not, for death hath sealed her lip. The stars are silent. All nature tells of death, but solves not the mystery of its being.

"For the living know that they shall die, and the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward," for death seals up the spring of action.

No hope of reward in the grave, "For the tree is felled and boughed and bare, and the measurer standeth with his line; the chance is, gone forever. The testimony is all rendered, the trial is over, the jury are gone in, and none can now be heard." "There is no work, nor device, nor knowlege, nor wisdom in the grave." No hope of success in toil, or sacrifice; no high ambition lures. There is no reward. Oh death thou art terrible, "for the memory of them is forgotten."

Oh ye living, standing on the enchanted ground of earthly hope, toiling to perpetuate a name, climbing over the necks of men, and up the slippery cliff to cut your initials in the rock; why do you toil?

Turn your eyes to the past; where are the wise, the great, the good! Where the scholar, the statesman, the philanthropist? "The memory of them is forgotten," in the grave. Their hopes were high as yours, their deeds were mightier; but the living of the past, are dead, and their memory is forgotten. A few names, linger recorded in the page of life, to tell the living the vanities of life; but only remembered as the silent page recalls them. Ask the aged, where the friends of youth? Let him make the effort to recall them one by one, across the dim mirror of the past. Alas, “the memory of them is forgotten." How soon the memory of the loved one passes away! How lately death reaped; how soon new loves, and hopes, and joys, drive out the memory of the dead! It needs the speaking marble, with date and age carved in, to tell us of their

life and death. And but for the ghostly stones that coldly glitter in the moonbeams, their memory were gone forever. And so it will be with us, with you! However vain, or rich, or wise, or loved or hated, death will claim you; the tomb will be sealed upon you, those that love you, will forget you; those arms that twine around you, those eyes that live in yours, those ears that drink in 'your voice, if you forget not their possessors in the grave, they will soon forget you.

Yes, I shall be forgotten! And then, and then, what to me the good or ill opinion of the world, "An hundred years hence?" Dead; knowledge dead; no reward; memory forgotten. Oh! how terrible is death..

The love, that burned so brightly and beamed out so sunny, that love is perished. The heart that beat in sweet response to heart, throbbing with love, no longer beats; the love is perished. The love that made home happy, that checked the wayward, that called back the wanderer, that reclaimed the vicious, the father's love, the mother's love, the sister's love, the child's love, the friend's love, the home love, is perished! perished! And so will perish yours-yours and mine. No matter how tender, how clinging, however dear the object; death sets to his seal, the heart stops, and love perishes.

And the dead hate not. There the strife is over. done. The dead avenge not. The tumult is appeased. Hate becomes passive, innoxious. It may burn, and sear, and torture its object and possessor here, but in the grave it perishes. It may follow through life its object, "wreaking petty vengeance on the flesh," giving its possessor the foul joy of gratified passion; it may carry its fierce desire into the future, and long to heap the cruel torturings through eternity; but in death, hate perishes.

There is no hate in the grave.
The fierce war of passion is

And the dead envy not. They number more than the living. Oh, vain man; your youth, your beauty, your wealth, your dress, the dead envy not. And you will soon be in the company of the dead, your memory for gotten, your love, and hate, and envy perished, and none there to envy you. That finely moulded form, that expressive face, that tender flesh, will soon be no object for envy. The worms will gnaw and gnaw. Those laughing, careless eyes, contain already the crawling, greedy reptile, that will drink up their liquid light, and lick the polished sockets. The fleshless. jaws, will ghastly grin in cruel mockery of your careless smile. The sexton's spade will clatter on your bones, and some other "food for worms 99 usurp your resting place. No room for envy in the dreary grave. And there love, and there hate, and there envy is per ished.

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Neither have they any more a portion forever of any thing that is done under the sun." The dead have no portion here.

The sun shines bright on hill and vale; the rain falls gently on waving grass and flowing river, the ploughman whistles cheerfully, the herds low, the flocks bleat, spring delights the sense, summer fills the heart with gladness, autumn yields her ample store, winter brings the glow of health and fireside joys; home is radiant with gladness, and hearts are redolent of bliss; the forest is leveled, cities rise, fleets plough the deep; mighty armies meet, and melt away beneath the iron hail and leaden tempest; nations rise and fall, millions are free, and millions are enslaved; but in all this, the dead have no portion. What to them, the sun, the rain, the flocks, the herds, the spring, the summer. What the home of love. What the woods, the city, the fleet; the contest of armies; the rise of empires, or the fall

of kings; for "neither have they any more a portion forever of anything that is done under the sun.”

Oh! "the living know that they shall die." No escape from death. No flying from death. Imprisoned here to earth, we must meet DEATH. We may shriek, and howl, and rave against our prison bars, but no escape. We are bound to earth and death, as Ixion to the wheel. The knowledge of death, like the Promethean vulture, is fastened on our vitals. We ask in vain of death, what art thou? for the grave gives not back an echo. We ask the sun, the stars, the clouds, the leaves, the flowers, what is death? and have for answer, death. We search through earth, and air, and sea, and still meet, death. We ask the wisdom of the past, Socrates and Plato, what is death? and yet the answer, death. We ask the monuments of time, the ruined cities of old, the pyramids of thousands of years, and still the same stern answer, death. We ask the infidel what is death? Confused and terrified, he can but mutter, death! We ask our hearts, and no response, but death.

We know that we shall die; no light from nature, or from men, or from our hearts, save that amid the brief joys and sorrows of time, death launches us, rudderless, compassless, companionless, into the sunless, starless, pathless, fathomless, measureless, void of annihilation.

And this is death, without the light of revelation!

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