. Miscellanies. --. e the defects of our oldtheology ; its inferiority to our habit of go up and down ; Science is popularized ;the irresistible democracy — shall I call it ? — ofchemistry, of vegetation, which recomposes fornew life every decomposing particle, — the racenever dying, the individual never spared, — haveimpressed on the mind of the age the futility ofthese old arts of preserving. We give our earthto earth. We will not jealously guard a few atomsunder immense marbles, selfishly and impos-sibly sequestering it from the vast circulationsof Nature, but, at the same time
. Miscellanies. --. e the defects of our oldtheology ; its inferiority to our habit of go up and down ; Science is popularized ;the irresistible democracy — shall I call it ? — ofchemistry, of vegetation, which recomposes fornew life every decomposing particle, — the racenever dying, the individual never spared, — haveimpressed on the mind of the age the futility ofthese old arts of preserving. We give our earthto earth. We will not jealously guard a few atomsunder immense marbles, selfishly and impos-sibly sequestering it from the vast circulationsof Nature, but, at the same time, fully admittingthe divine hope and love which belong to ournature, wishing to make one spot tender to ourchildren, who shall come hither in the nextcentury to read the dates of these lives. Our people accepting this lesson from science,yet touched by the tenderness which Christianitybreathes, have found a mean in the consecrationof gardens. A simultaneous movement has, in Mr. Emersons Grave m S/eepy Holloa. SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY 431 a hundred cities and towns in this country,selected some convenient piece of undulatingground with pleasant woods and waters ; everyfamily chooses its own clump of trees ; and welay the corpse in these leafy colonnades. A grove of trees, — what benefit or orna-ment is so fair and great ? they make the land-scape ; they keep the earth habitable ; their rootsrun down, like cattle, to the water-courses ; theirheads expand to feed the atmosphere. The lifeof a tree is a hundred and a thousand years; itsdecays ornamental ; its repairs self-made: theygrow when we sleep, they grew when we wereunborn. Man is a moth among these longev-ities. He plants for the next haunt them ; all that ever lived aboutthem cling to them. You can almost see behindthese pines the Indian with bow and arrow lurk-ing yet exploring the traces of the old trail. Modern taste has shown that there is no orna-ment, no architecture alone, so sumptuous aswe
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