by the living. Shall we, in a Christian land, claim to have less of justice, less of decency and natural feeling, than the rude heathen whose place on the earth we have taken; a race who carefully watched over the burial-places of their fathers with unwavering fidelity? Shall we seek to rival the deed of the brutal wrecker who strips the corpse of the drowned man on the wild shore of the ocean when no honest arm is near? Shall we follow in the steps of the cowardly thief who prowls in the darkness about the field of battle to plunder the lifeless brave? Shall we cease to teach our children that of all covetousness, that which would spoil the helpless is the most revolting? Or, in short, shall we sell the ashes of our fathers that a little more coin may jingle in our own pockets?
It matters little that a man say he should be willing his own grave should be broken up, his own bones scattered to the winds; the dead, whom he would disturb, might tell a different tale could their crumbling skeletons rise up before him, endowed once more with speech. There was a great man who, if we may believe the very solemn words on his tomb, has spoken in this instance, as in ten thousand others, the strong, natural language of the human heart:
| “ | Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare |
| To dig the dust enclosed here; | |
| Blest be he that spares these stones, | |
| And curst be he that moves my bones.” |
In this new state of society—in this utilitarian age—it behooves us, indeed, to be especially on our guard against any attack upon the tomb; the same spirit which, to-day, stands ready to break open the graves of a past generation, to-morrow, by carrying out
