Passing yet in another direction was a tall youth, with a subdued expression of countenance, hurrying on, in spite of wind and rain, to the doctor’s office, to procure assistance for a sick mother, who was tossing in all the agony of brain fever.  The doctor had been called away to visit a little child that had a sudden attack of the croup, that fearful disease that bears so many children to the tomb.  He returned again with a sorrowing heart.  Heeded he the sweet tones of music that fell upon his youthful ear? wished he to join the gay group as they flitted before the brilliantly lighted, window, and the fairy forms of the fashionable, and the pleasure-seeking met his eye?  O, no; there was sorrow in his young heart, and sorrow brooded over the household.  Towards midnight the doctor came, and a young daughter, younger than many who graced the festive ball, following his directions, alleviated the sufferings of a sick mother, and wore the weary night away in anxious watchings.

Not till another day dawned, did the rumbling of the carriages cease, that were conveying home the sons and daughters of dissipation.  And thus passed the night, leaving no trace upon earth, for the waves of time have obliterated all its footprints.  But its record is on high, and it will never be forgotten by the Eternal One, whose eye slumbereth not.

Such is human life, and such is the race of man.  Although we are all bound together by one common brotherhood, the song of the gay is ever the funeral dirge to the sorrowing.

Perchance that night might have disclosed still darker pictures in the hidden recesses of our village, for, oh, there are dens of foul pollution, that send their infectious taint over the pure air of our community, calling the blush of shame to the cheek of conscious virtue, and creating an ardent desire in the breast of the philanthropist, to go forth and labor in the vineyard of the Lord, that these foul spots may be washed in his precious blood, and made clean.

O, could all the misery that was extant in the village have been presented to the thoughtless revellers, could they have danced on?  Would not the tear of sympathy have moistened the cheek, and the still small voice whispered of a solemn time that must come to them?  O, it is wise to receive the admonition, “Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”

Faint, indeed, are the delineations from Memory’s tablet, upon this little map, but enough, perchance, to lead the contemplative mind to reflect upon the vicissitudes and changes of its little day, and teach us to prepare for a better world, “where change comes not.”

Contemplations in a Grave Yard.

  ’Twas on one pensive even tide,
    When restless toil and day had fled;
  I laid all airy scenes aside,
    To wander o’er the silent dead.

  The rising moon from eastern sky,
    O’er the lone heath shed languid light,
  And boding owls with fearful cry
    Heightened the solemn gloom of night.