I have been wandering among the graves of those loved best when the heart could love most, and dead memories sprouted anew, and with them a flash of the feelings which made them treasures of the heart. Yonder is the grave of Thomas W. Cobb; near me is that of him most loved—William C. Dawson; and here, in this green grave, is Yelverton P. King; and near him is the last resting-place of Adeline Harrison. Dear, sweet Adeline, you went, in truth, to heaven, ere yet the bud of life had opened into flower! This is the county of my birth, and all of these, save Cobb, were natives, too, of the dear old land.
To me, how near and dear were these! Turn back, O Time, thy volume for fifty years, and let me read over anew the records of dead days, and make memories once more realities, as they were real then—else hurry on to the end, that I may know with these, or with these forget forever! I would not linger in the twilight of life, with all of time dimming out, and nothing of eternity dawning upon my vision. Let me sleep in the forgetfulness of the one, to awake to the fruition of the other!
I have been to the graves of my father and my mother. For more than a third of a century they have been sleeping here. I sat down in the moonlight, and placed my hand upon the cold, heavy stone which rests above them: they do not feel its pressure, but sleep well. They are but earth now—and why am I here? The moon and the stars are the same, and as sweetly bright, looking down upon this sacred spot, as they were when, a little child, I sat upon the knee of her who is nothing here, and listened to her telling me the names of these, as she would point to them, and ask me if I did not see them winking at me. Yet they are there, and the same now as then. But where is that gentle, sweet, affectionate mother? Is she up among these gems of heaven? Is she yonder in the mighty Jupiter, looking down, and smiling at me? Is she permitted, in her new being, to come at will, and breathe to my mind holy thoughts and holy feelings? Disembodied, is she, as God, pervading all, and knowing all? Does she, with that devotion of heart which was so much hers in time, still love and protect me? Shall I, when purified by death, go to her? and shall this hope become a reality, and endure forever? Surely, this must be true; or, why are these thoughts and hopes in the mind—why this affection sublimated still in the heart—why this link between the living, and the dead, if its fruition shall be denied in eternity? Why this question, which implies a doubt of the goodness of God? Sweet is the belief, sweeter the hope, that I shall see that smile of benignity, feel that gentle, loving caress, and forever, in unalloyed bliss, participate heaven with her. My mother—my mother! see you into my heart, here by your gravestone, to-night? Hast thou gone with me through my long pilgrimage of time? If I have kept thy counsels, and walked by their wisdom, hast thou approved, my mother? My mother, all that is good and pure in me has come of thee! If the allurements of vice have tempted, and frail nature has threatened to yield, the morning's admonition, the evening's counsel in our long walks, would strengthen me to forbearance. These bright memories have lived and remained with me a guide and salvation; and now they are the morning's memory, the evening's thought. As I have remembered and loved thee, I have been guided and governed by these. Surely there can be no loss to the child like the loss of the mother! How those are to be pitied! They go through life without the holy influences for good coming from a mother; they stumble on, and learn here and there, as time progresses, the moral lessons only taught to childhood from a mother's lips: they stumble and fall for the want of these; and, by experience, too often bitter experience, learn in youth what in childhood should be taught, which should grow up with them as a part of their being, to be the guides and comforts of life. And oh, how many never learn this!
Go, and converse with the wise and good, and they will tell you of their mothers' teachings; go to the condemned criminal, whose crimes have cast him from society, and ask him why he is thus—and he will tell you he disregarded the teachings of his mother; or, 'I had a wicked and vicious mother, who taught me evil instead of good;' or, 'I had no mother, to plant in my childhood's heart the fear of God and the love of virtue.'
Here, to me, to-night, in grateful memory, comes the Sabbath morning in the garden at the home of my childhood, more than sixty years ago, when this dead mother here sleeping pointed to the drunken man passing on the highway, and, kindly looking up into my face, asked me to look at him, and, when he had passed out of sight, said: "My child, will you here, this beautiful morning of God's day, promise your mother that you will not drink one drop of ardent spirits until you are twenty-one years of age? You are so full of animal spirits, I fear, should you touch it at all, that you will come to drink to excess, and fill a drunkard's grave before you shall have passed half the days allotted to man's life." I see that pleading face, those soft brown eyes to-night, as they looked from where she was seated into my face; I see the soft smile of satisfaction, as it came up from her heart and illumined her features, when I lifted up my hand and made the promise! And, oh, shall I ever forget the thrill which gladdened my heart when she rose up and kissed me, and murmured so gently, so tenderly, so full of hope and confidence: "I know you will keep it, my child." That promise is a holy memory! It was kept with sacred fidelity.
Angel of love and light—my mother—look down upon thy child here to-night, and for the last time by thy grave, with whitened head and tottering step, and see if I have ever departed from the way you taught me to go! Soon I shall be with you.
MY WORK IS OVER, MY TASK IS DONE!