'Peace to her broken heart and virgin grave!'
"In what a noble, what a truly grand point of view does this instance of triumphant faith place the glorious religion in which we believe! In what bold relief does its value to our fallen race appear! What a luminous light does it shed in life's last agonies, opening up a radiant vista through the clouds and darkness which settle on the soul, like the shadows of approaching death! There is nothing better qualified to develop the intellectual faculties, enlarge the understanding, and strengthen and foster the latent virtues of the heart, than the love and the study of literature. I am no advocate for the exclusive study of Scripture--nay, I am not sure if such restricted reading would not lead to narrowness of mind and gloomy unconcern about the affairs of life, and the duties connected with it, if not also to selfish moroseness and illiberal bigotry--a want of community of feeling and sympathy with human nature in general. But what would literature _alone_ have done for May Darling? Would the recollection of Shakspere's finest bursts of inspiration, where the dramatist seems struggling with nature which shall be the greatest, have buoyed her spirit up under the load which oppressed it, or given but one, only one, faint assurance of immortality? Alas! they could only have reminded her of what it would have been far better to forget for ever, to bury in everlasting oblivion beneath the waves of Lethe. How finely does the bard of Hope write, in reference to the anticipation of eternal felicity in the hour of dissolution!
'What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly?-- The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye? Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey The morning dream of life's eternal day!'
Or what could philosophy have done for her? Science has only reference to this life--its eagle eye has never caught a ray reflected from that which is to come. Matter may be tortured by methods, varied with infinite ingenuity; but every secret thus disclosed only relates to _matter_--there is nothing of spirit brought to light in all the experiments of the chemist, in all the observations of the astronomer, in all the gropings and searching investigations of the geologist; for, though he reveals past time--ay, almost a past eternity--the strata of the earth, with their world of organic wonders, which record the transpired history of our planet in imperishable hieroglyphics, tell nothing of the future. The ocean, with its buried wrecks and its countless treasures; the mountain, over which the mighty deep once rolled its undulating expanse, and there deposited its myriads of living creatures; the desert, which heaps its ocean of sand over entombed cities, once the glory of the earth----But why should we go on?--everything speaks of the past, but not a whisper comes from creation's breast of what is to come. The Bible alone discloses the mighty secret. May all, therefore, find it what it proved to be to May Darling: light, when all is dark--hope, when all is despair--pleasure in pain--life in death.