Within whose rugged bark,
This warm and living form shall find
Its narrow house and dark.

Not but that such thoughts are well in their due time and place. It
is very fit that we should all sometimes try to realize distinctly
what is meant when each of us repeats words four thousand years
old, and says, 'I know that Thou wilt bring me to death, and to the
house appointed for all living.' Even with all such remembrances
brought home to him by means to which we are not likely to resort,
the good priest and martyr Robert Southwell tells us how hard he
found it, while in buoyant life, to rightly consider his end. But
in perfect cheerfulness and healthfulness of spirit, the human
being who knows (so far as man can know) where he is to rest at
last, may oftentimes visit that peaceful spot. It will do him good:
it can do him no harm. The hard-wrought man may fitly look upon
the soft green turf, some day to be opened for him; and think to
himself, Not yet, I have more to do yet; but in a little while.
Somewhere there is a place appointed for each of us, a place that
is waiting for each of us, and that will not be complete till we
are there. Well, we rest in the humble trust, that 'through the
grave and gate of death, we shall pass to our joyful resurrection.'
And we turn away now from the churchyard, recalling Bryant's lines
as to its extent:

Yet not to thy eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise and good,