But why dwell upon the fearful scene?  We have seen the little child contending with the strong arm of the destroyer, and felt it was a fearful thing for it to yield up its little life and pass forever away from earth.  But when we see the strong man cut suddenly down, the man who has scarcely passed the meridian of life, we “feel how dreadful ’tis to die.”  The love of life is strengthened by years.  There are cords of association binding him to it, the rolling, restless tide of business, with its fluctuations and its cares, sweeps over him, and seems binding him to earth.  The love of children, for whose welfare a kind father has so long been mindful, and all the fond endearments of home and kindred, are so many sacred ties binding him to life.  But all must be severed before the ruthless tyrant who conquers conquerers, and has justly been styled, “the king of terrors.”

And so it was in this case.  Nature yielded reluctantly every advantage gained by the fearful foe, ’till her energies were exhausted, and sinking down in quiet slumber, she yielded the contest without a struggle.

About eight o’clock on Thursday evening, a heavy stupor came over him, and the fearful death-rattle warned us of the approach of the grim messenger.  We watched his failing breath with agonizing emotions.  But we turned from him one little moment, and when we turned again, the lamp of life was extinguished.  O, the fearful agonizing cry that arose by that death bed, when we realized that the husband and father had passed away, forever away.  But while we wept and mourned, he slept on unheeding.  Death made little change in his countenance, and when he was dressed in his accustomed clothing, and laid in his coffin, he looked like a weary man taking rest in sleep.

It was a pleasant day in mid April that we bore him to his grave, and laid him down beneath the green branches of the arbor vitae tree.  How many mournful thoughts pressed upon the heart, almost crushing out the very life, as the mournful train followed him to that sacred spot.  Who that has looked into an open grave, and seen the coffin of the dearly loved lowered into it, but has felt an indiscribable agony filling the heart, and blotting out all the prospect of future earthly happiness?  And who that listens to the sound of the heavy, damp earth as it falls upon the coffin, but will say, “oh, has earth another sound like this?” And there we left the husband and the father reposing beneath the tree his own hand had trained, and in the yard where he had spent so many hours laboring to beautify the spot where he was so soon to lie down in his last long sleep.  By his side are the graves of the two dear grand-children, who were wont to share in his caresses, and his smiles.  Silent now is their greeting, as the weary grandfather lays down with them in the place of graves:  But eternity! oh eternity! how is the meeting there?  Have they met?  There are father, mother, brothers, sister,