APOSTROPHE TO FORT HILL. [AUTHOR UNKNOWN.] How solemn is this place-for here Shall open founts of tears; A thousand breasts have garner'd store, Here earthly cries, and earthly moans, Vain, falling tears, vain, pleading tones- Shall some lie here who can't be mourn'd, Unloving and unloved? Whose souls no loftiness adorn'd, No aspiration moved? Oh then, let all the living mourn, Be humble for the glory shorn, Art hovering o'er thy once wild home, When thy free nature loved to roam, Sweet, quiet spot-thy spreading trees, Thy angel-guarded dells, Thy dappled sunlight-chanting breeze, Like spirit-voice that swells Thy throats of song-thy insect's hum, Make this a pillow blest, To lay one's weary head upon, For welcome, heavenly rest. After the reading of these beautiful lines, by the Rev. W. G. R. Mellen, the following Consecratory Ode was sung by an excellent choir: CONSECRATION ODE. [BY REV. J. M. AUSTIN.] Maker of Worlds! the Earth is Thine, And Thine each bright and sparkling zone; Thou mad'st and claimest all thine own. These hills, these lawns, we crave of Thee, The treasured ashes of the dead, In hope that by Thy spirit led, The soul, repentant, may be thine. Here where the Red Man bow'd of old, Our mourn'd we'll leave with hopes more bright. Forever hallow'd be this ground, These peaceful vales, these solemn shades! Here may we muse-here oft be found When morning smiles and evening fades. Guard Thou, O Lord, this holy place, May hearts bereft, here find, through grace, The Cemetery Grounds were then formally dedicated, by the Rev. Dr. Laurens P. Hickok, President of the Auburn Theological Seminary. DEDICATORY ADDRESS. [BY REV. DR. L. P. HICKOK.] It may subserve the design of this solemn convocation, to consider how the same thing in nature is perpetually varying the modes of its being; how one substance remains, through many altered forms. The identical being passes on, into successive different appearances. The solid congelation which binds the lake and river; the pure snow crystal, which falls soft on the plain; the limpid stream, which murmurs along its pebbly bed; and the light vapor, which floats etherial across the sky: they are one and the same thing in nature, and yet, any portion of this element may, in time, appear in all these different forms. So the fresh plant, in all its stalk and branches, green leaves and fragrant flower, is still the same living thing which, but a few days since, was pent up at rest within its hard and dry kernel. These mighty oaks, again, which to-day spread their strong branches over us, may be traced through centuries, up to pliant saplings, tender shrubs, and germinating buds, just bursting from their acorns; and yet, one and the same living being has been growing on, through all the long process. The reptile, too, crawls along the earth with unsightly form and sluggish movement, winds himself in his funeral shroud an embalmed chrysalis, then bursts his cerements, a winged angel in beauty and joy, flying in the open heavens from one starry flower to another at his pleasure; and yet, as reptile, chrysalis and flying psyche, the form only has changed, the living thing has been in all identical. Thus universal through earth and sea and air, forms come and vanish, phenomena arise and pass away, but the substance continues as it was, yesterday and to-day the same. There is nothing which comes up out of a void, and then goes out in annihilation; all change is but an altered appearance of the permanent. Nature, in her essential being, is to-day precisely what she was in the first days of Adam, and from the song of the morning stars at creation till the oath of the angel shall make "time to be no longer," the same thing is only throwing off and putting on successive garments. Man, in so far forth as he is of nature, is bound up in nature, and has the same law of the permanent running on through continual alterations. In his development he passes into successive forms, and one perpetually removes to make way for the following, the same man successively existing in them all. From infancy to age the shapes and features are constantly put on and off, while the real wearer is identically one. He is born, matures, decays and dies; he moulders in the tomb, and his dust mingles with nature's other elements; but that identical essence which built up its own forms, and put on and off the successive particles which while living came and went in his own body, still endures; and so long as nature is, so long the essential man abides and holds on to his place and connections amid the elemental compounds of the universe. The law of nature would determine thus much for every man's perpetual identity, through all the series of cause and effect which might flow on interminably. What was once the natural man would still be evermore somewhere in nature. But, while nature might thus teach us that the man endures, yet could not nature teach us that her changes would again bring up the man in consciousness, nor foretell the breaking of that bright morning when he shall awake again from his tomb in immortal youth and activity. If his lot were only with nature, then must man interminably endure and change on in nature. "As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens shall be no more, they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep." (Job 14: 11, 12.) Nature teaches the permanent identity of man through all changes, but nature teaches not that man shall rise again. |