the cliff sounds as if nature were impatient of the long, long delay, and had anticipated the last thunders that wake the sleeping dead.  On a clear day, the blue Pacific, stretching away beyond the snowy surf-line, symbolizes the shoreless sea that rolls through eternity.  The Cliff House road that runs hard by is the chief drive of the pleasure-seekers of San Francisco.  Gayety, and laughter, and heart-break, and tears, meet on the drive; the wail of agony and the laugh of gladness mingle as the gay crowds dash by the slow-moving procession on its way to the grave.  How often have I made that slow, sad journey to Lone Mountain—­a Via Doloroso to many who have never been the same after they had gone thither, and coming back found the light quenched and the music bushed in their homes!  Thither the dead Senator was borne, followed by the tramping thousands, rank on rank, amid the booming of minute-guns, the tolling of bells, the measured tread of plumed soldiers, and the roll of drums.  Thither was carried, in his rude coffin, the “unknown man” found dead in the streets, to be buried in potter’s-field.  Thither was borne the hard and grasping idolater of riches, who clung to his coin, and clutched for more, until he was dragged away by the one hand that was colder and stronger than his own.  Here was brought the little child, out of whose narrow grave there blossomed the beginnings of a new life to the father and mother, who in the better life to come will be found among the blessed company of those whose only path to paradise lay through the valley of tears.  Here were brought the many wanderers, whose last earthly wish was to go back home, on the other side of the mountains, to die, but were denied by the stern messenger who never waits nor spares.  And here was brought the mortal part of the aged disciple of Jesus, in whose dying-chamber the two worlds met, and whose death-throes were demonstrably the birth of a child of God into the life of glory.

The first time I ever visited the place was to attend the funeral of a suicide.  The dead man I had known in Virginia, when I was a boy.  He was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and when I first knew him he was the captain of a famous volunteer company.  He was as handsome as a picture—­the admiration of the girls, and the envy of the young men of his native town.  He was among the first who rushed to California on the discovery of gold, and of all the heroic men who gave early California its best bias none was knightlier than this handsome Virginian; none won stronger friends, or had brighter hopes.  He was the first State Senator from San Francisco.  He had the magnetism that won and the nobility that retained the love of men.  Some men push themselves forward by force of intellect or of will—­this man was pushed upward by his friends because he had their hearts.  He married a beautiful woman, whom he loved literally unto death.  I shall not recite the whole story.  God only