Slowly walks the mourner through the yet sleeping woods, whose flowers are folded in silence, and whose birds give forth no carols. She reaches the antique church and enters the sacred doors. A mysterious light—light that is almost shade—is brooding over the holy aisles, clothing in shadowy garments the pale images of departed saints; wrapping in mantle of dimness the carved sepulchres; throwing strange gleams over the tall white columns; and embracing, with pale arms, cross and picture, and antique shrine. In the midst of this mysterious light kneel a silent company; each head is bowed on the clasped hands, and no sound is heard save a deep, far distant murmuring, like the voice of the mighty wind when it passes through the leaves of the dark, old pines, dwelling in some dim, solemn woods.
Suddenly every head is lifted, and the mourner sees in that vast company friends who had been sleeping long ages in the silent tomb. All were there again; the friend of her cloudless childhood, who went down to death's cold chambers in all her stainless beauty, sinking into the grave as pure as the snow-flake that falls to the earth. And there was the sister of her home and heart, the tried friend of sorrow's shaded hours, who, in dying, left a mighty void that time could never fill. And there were the "mighty dead," they whose footsteps, when living, tracked the world with light—light that now shed a halo over their graves. And there were the meek, patient ones of earth, pale martyrs to sorrow, who struggled hopefully through the dim vapors that surround the world, and met as a reward the ineffable brightness of heaven. They were all here, all who had passed from earth amidst a fond tribute of tears and regrets.
All were here save two, those two the most dearly loved among the precious company of the dead; and wildly scanning the pale group, the mother called aloud as she missed her children: "Oh, my sons! my sons! would that I could see them but once again!"
Then arose a loud voice, and it said: "Look to the east;" and the weeping mother looked.
Oh! dreadful sight! there, by the sacred altar, rested a block and a fearful wheel. Stretched on these dreadful instruments of doom, in the coarse garb of the prison, wrestling fiercely with death in its most awful form, were two poor youths; and in their wan countenances, where crime and grief had traced their fearful march, the mother recognized her lost sons.
Dismayed, heart-sick, despairing, she motionless stands; and the deep silence is again broken by a voice speaking these words:—
"Mourner, whose every tone is a murmur at Heaven's will, whose every expression is a doubt of God's love, let this teach thee a mighty truth. See the dark path of crime they might have trod; see the agony, the shame, the maternal anguish that might have swept like a desolating tempest over thy heart; then thank thy God, in a burst of fervent praise, that he took them in unsullied youth from a world of sin to a place of safe refuge."
The voice ceased, and darkness fell like a pall on the marble floor; but through the arched windows came streaming the pale moonlight, and beneath its holy rays, the mother knelt and prayed.
There fell on her heart a blessed calm, as a voice whispered to the troubled waves of sorrow, "peace, be still."
And the angel of death stole softly in, and sealed her pale lips forever, whilst repentance and resignation were breathing from them in the music of prayer.