robed mutes and weepers. It is wrong that this pomp and circumstance should be so engrafted on our national habits, that the desolate widow, the penniless orphan, or unportioned sister, must cruelly embarrass themselves to obtain the precious vestments which custom dictates, or be supposed to fail in respect to the husband, the father, the brother, whom they loved in their heart of hearts, and to a re-union with whom they look as their chiefest hope and comfort. The mourning which Christ hath hallowed-for he wept for Lazarus has no communion with crape bands and weepers. There is no teacher like Death. In his dread presence the great mystery of life opens on the sorrowing heart, the awakened mind. He teaches that faith and hope by which the bruised seed is bound, the broken heart healed; and as fragrance, which in its perfectness was unknown, emanates from an herb when it is crushed, so does sorrow develope virtues and consolations undreamt of in gay and happy hours. Thus does the faithful mourner learn that sorrow and pain and suffering—those "many waters," which threatened but did not overwhelm-passed, the purified and renewed spirit will emerge on that happier shore, where sin and sorrow are unknown, where tears are wiped from every eye, and where the toil-worn, grief-worn, stricken, but contrite denizen of the earth, shall stand blessed, pure and happy as a little child, in the presence of his Creator. And so chastened and subdued, and passing "cheerly on through prayer unto the tomb," the true mourner looks beyond that solemn vestibule, to re-union with those deeply and enduringly loved on earth, who are lost but gone before. - not ANCIENT GREEK EPITAPHS. A PECULIAR pathos characterizes the Greek Epitaphs, and though they are generally wanting in those expressions of hope in an existence after death that distinguish the epitaphs of Christian nations, they are still read with interest by all persons of cultivated mind. The Romans were more accustomed to weaving a moral lesson in their epitaphs, but those of the Greeks surpass them in tenderness of sentiment and felicity of expression. The following examples are selected from Pettigrew's collection. Of general application, and in relation to the universality of death, and the moral lesson to be derived from it, we have, By Archilochus : Jove sits in highest Heaven, and opes the springs, Death seals the fountains of reward and fame: By Simonides: Human strength is unavailing; Death, for ever hovering round; When he comes prepared to strike, Good and bad will feel alike. The Greeks do not appear to have considered the introduction of the name as essential to an inscription; thus on some who were shipwrecked, By Archilochus : Loud are our griefs, my friend, and vain is he O'er those we mourn; the hoarse resounding wave Resolved endurance - for affliction pours There is much feeling in the following, By Amyte: - Drop o'er Antibia's grave a pious tear; The following contains some hint of future existence,— BY A MOTHER ON HER SON. Unhappy child! Unhappy I, who shed, O guide me hence, sweet Spirit, to the bourn By Simmias of Thebes : ON SOPHOCLES. Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade By Speusippus: — ON PLATO. Plato's dead form this earthly shroud invests; Beside the tomb where Bathus' son is laid, Well skilled in all the minstrel's lore was he; By the same: EPITAPH ON HIS FATHER. Know thou, this tomb who passest by, One of his country was the shield, But his gray hairs their temple. make. By Meleager : ON HELIODORA. Tears o'er my Heliodora's grave I shed, O flow, my bitter sorrows, o'er her shrine, woe, An empty offering to the shades below! Ah! plant regretted! Death's remorseless power |