The grave is but the threshold of eternity. What a world were this, how unendurable its weight, If they whom death hath sundered, did not meet again!

How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures; nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven: In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine Rolls through the dark blue depths; Beneath her steady ray The desert circle spreads Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. How beautiful is night!

My name is Death: the last best friend am I.

My days among the dead are passed; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old; My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.

Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on.

The grave is but the threshold of eternity. What a world were this, how unendurable its weight, If they whom death hath sundered, did not meet again!

Among the poor, the approach of dissolution is usually regarded with a quiet and natural composure, which it is consolatory to contemplate, and which is as far removed from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the delirious raptures of fanaticism. Theirs is a true, unhesitating faith, and they are willing to lay down the burden of e weary life, in the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality.