Even as the pilgrim, bound upon some long travel,
pauses by the wayside to plant a flower, or utter a
devout prayer upon the spot once sacred to some sweet

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affection, and not yet entirely forgotten; so, stranger,
if you be a solitary—one, who, with a spirit that can
roam with nature, and find her forest-home at all times
acceptable, strays apart from the crowding city, and
the noisy abodes of men—I will pray that you be persuaded
to turn aside with me, in this our journey together,
and look, before we shall have gone too far to
return to them, upon these old-time tombs of Dorchester.
Sweet is their silence—may their repose be
sacred. They yield us a quiet rest, as they testify to
that of their inmates. We leave the thoroughfare, and
the woods girdle us thickly. The streets of the village,
mirthful and busy once, are overgrown with triumphant
cedars—they crowd fitly upon these old trophies of
the sleepless conqueror. They shroud—they seem to
sanctify the spot; and you shall ramble over the ruins
and contemplate the few memorials which remain,
without dread of the thoughtless jeer, or the heartless
laugh of irreverent curiosity. Living man disturbs
not often this sainted neighbourhood. The place, in
his mind, is desolate enough. Not so, I think, in ours.
We shall gather something for thought from these
mansions of decay, where death shall carry the lamp
for life, and bring us to all his most secret places.

How much more solid than ours were the tastes of
our ancestors! how earnest did they seem in all their
labours! They were less selfish than their children,
and seem to have built almost entirely for us. Their
vaults how thick and huge, how cumbrous, how timedefying!
The narrow mind calls it vanity to bestow
so much pains on a human monument; but the moral
is the stronger, when we know that, however worthy in
the sight of his kindred was the object of this care, he
was still the victim of the unrelaxing death. The
thick massive tomb seems also well conceived to illustrate
those impassable barriers of destiny which shut
the living man entirely out from him who has already
shaken off the coil and care of mortality. And, when
the tomb is rent asunder, as is the one before us, may
we not infer the ascent of the triumphant spirit,

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throwing aside all the idle restraints, even of the affection
that would keep it for ever to itself, and rising, on the
transparent wings of an eternal morning, to the fair and
wooing mansions of eternal bliss?

And there is the old church, like a thoughtful matron,
sitting in quiet contemplation among her children.
Their graves are all around her; but she, deserted by
those she taught and cherished, without even the
tongue to deplore them—dumb, as it were, with her
excess of wo—she still sits, a monument like themselves,
not only of their worship, but of the faith which
she taught. It is a graceful ruin, that will awaken all
your veneration, if the gnawing cares of gain, and the
world's baser collision, have not kept it too long inactive.
It stands up, like some old warrior, gray with
many winters, scarred and buffeted with conflicting
storms and strifes, but still upright—still erect. The
high altar, the sacred ornaments, the rich pews, like
the people who honoured and occupied them, are torn
away and gone. Decay and rude hands have dealt
with them, as death has dealt with the worshippers.
The walls and roof are but little hurt. The tower has
been stricken and shattered, but still more hallowed by
the lightning which has done it. Some white owls
are in quiet posession of it, but as they are innocent,
and seem in venerable keeping with the place, the
gentle spirit will hold them sacred from harm; and
may no profane hand drive them away. Here, to the
right of the church, is a goodly cluster of tombs, fringed
in, thickly, by the pine and cedar. The cattle stray
here at noonday for the shady quiet, not less than for
the rank grass which the spot affords. They are not
the least gentle of its visiters. Rude hands, in some
cases, have torn away and broken up, in sinful wantonness,
the thick marble slabs which covered the
vaults, and recorded the history of their indwellers.
This was a double wrong—a wrong to those of whom
they told, and not loss a wrong to those who read, and
who might have won useful knowledge from a lesson at
the grave. Here, now, is the bone of an arm—a

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slender bone—perhaps that of a woman. It lies before us,
unconscious of its exposure. We will disturb it no
farther—enough, if what we have seen shall have the
effect of persuading us to regard with less complacency
the vigour, and the power, and the beauty in our own.
Pass on. Here we may muse for hours, and our
thoughts shall be as various as the records we have
about us. Some of these tombs belong to history.
Here lies one of a man who was killed and scalped at
Goose Creek, in the war of the Yemassees, when those
brave savages came down in 1715. This stone tells us
of another who died at Eutaw in the Revolution, and who
was brought here for burial, at his own request. The
spot was sacred even then. You, who can “find sermons
in stones, and good in every thing,” shall be at no
loss for matters of thought in the huge volumes of time
which death has here bound up together—their leaves
closely written upon, and every page full of a sweet
though sad morality. But, if you will descend with
me to the bottom of this little hill, inclining from the
burial-ground towards the Ashley, which steals in and
out below us, I will take you to one monument, now
sacred in our narrative—one monument, the history
of which is more familiar to our regards than all the
gravestones can possibly make it. The hill descends
gradually here, and the young pines crowd upon it
thickly. You see a little runlet of water that trickles
down its sides. The traveller, who knows where to
seek it, draws in from the roadside and drinks of it
freely, though he well knows that it finds its source
from the dwellings of the dead. At the foot of the
hill you behold a little enclosure—a neat paling fence,
once white, but now sadly wanting repair. It is in
better condition, however, than most of those around
it. The seclusion of the spot tends somewhat to its
protection. This is the “Walton Burial-place.” The
old barony has given it many tenants. Here, now, is
a solid slab, twelve feet in length, that covers a generation.
A long inscription tells us of grandsire, son,
grandson—of their wives and children—how they were

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worthy and beloved in life, and how they were
regretted in death. There are others at the side of
this—a goodly range, each having testament and memorial—
names of many, of whom, as we know nothing,
with all the elastic indifference which is the characteristic
of man, we can care but little. Not so, however,
with the slender shaft to which I now take you.
Here is a little hillock—tread not upon it—which
should be sacred to us. An infant cedar, when the
grave was fresh, plucked up by the roots from the
neighbouring woods, was planted at its foot. It has
taken a strong hold, and has grown into a beautiful
tree, which throws a pleasant and solemn shadow over
it. The headstone has but two letters that are now
visible—

“E. S.”

“born 7th May, 1763; died 21st June, 1780.”

“My Sister.”

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