es to our own
experience, and to the illustrations which the resurrection will afford,
of the divine wisdom and power. No wonder, we say, that Paul esteemed
it the height of Christian privilege, that he, as a redeemed human
being, "might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."

It is an innocent fancy, if it be not worthy of a better name, that the
great attention which has been given of late years to new cemeteries,
now in such contrast to the old graveyards, whose reckless disorder so
perfectly expressed abandonment to sorrow and unresisting surrender to
the last enemy, is a symptomatic token of growing faith in the great,
general heart of the Christianized part of the race, with regard to that
consummation of all things, the resurrection of the dead.

As at sea there is, within certain degrees of latitude and longitude, an
uphill and a downhill, made by the convexity of the globe, we, perhaps,
may have reached the meridian of the great voyage, and may have begun to
feel the inclination which will set us forward more swiftly to the end.
The power of the great consummation will be waxing stronger and
stronger. Men are looking to the cemeteries as places where great
treasures went down, or were abandoned, and they begin to think that
some great restoration awaits them. These costly and beautiful
cemeteries, which men are preparing, are like Hiram's contributions to
the building of the temple; they foretell some great thing; they have a
look not only of expectation, but of design, not merely of faith, but of
hope. With a truly liberal regard to the decoration of those burial
places with costly works of general interest, in the department of art,
we shall do well to make provision, by statute, for the perpetual repair
and preservation of every enclosure, and every grave, the whole body
corporate thus pledging itself, as far as possible, to each incumbent,
that his last resting place shall be the care of the perpetuated
fraternity to the end of time.

And when the prophecies are accomplished, and the stone cut out of the
mountain without hands has filled the earth, and the apostasy which is
to follow the general prevalence of religion, has deluged the world
with blood, and Satan, loosed a little season, is triumphing in his
maddened career, and the graves are full, and the souls under the altar,
with their importunate cry, can no longer wait for the avenging
arm,--then shall be seen the sign of the Son of man coming i