accompanied by all the rights of religion, and all the sanctity of its ministers; and finally deposite them in the national cemetry provided for that purpose under the foundation of this building,* which thenceforth shall be, not only the temple of freedom, legislation, and justice, but also the august mausoleum of Washington? Who, of all the civilized world, will, while these reverential movements are performing, who will point his finger at these solemnities, and call them a mere pageant ?

It is the feeling, the purpose of the persons, and not the place or the subject which renders their deed pious or profane. Can we never again without sacrilege, look into the dark house of those so dear to us, until they, bursting the cerements of the tomb, are clothed with immortality? How often does the piety of children, how often the anxious affection of parents, induce them to remove the remains of endeared relatives, to places of more appropriate sepulture? How often do nations remove to their own countries, from distant foreign lands, the bones of their illustrious dead? Was it sacrilege in the Hebrews, when migrating from Egypt, to take from

*The Capitol at Washington.

the consecrated catacomb or pyramid, where for centuries they had been deposited, the bones of the illustrious founder of one of their families, and the preserver of them all; and bearing them from the populous valley of the Nile, the learned and luxurious realm of the Pharaoh's, the scene of all his glory that they might carry them to a land of rocks and mountains; and render his burial place one of the eternal monuments of their country? So it has continued; and at this day it is, by the dwellers on the hill or on the plain, pointed out to the traveller as the tomb of Joseph the Patriarch.

We are told that the last will and testament of Washington, points out the place and directs the manner of his interment; and if we remove his bones from their present repository, we shall violate that will, and set at defiance principles dear to all civilized nations. Did indeed, then, this great man prohibit this people from doing honor to his remains by placing them in a mausoleum more suitable to his illustrious life, and to the gratitude of Americans? He, like all Christian men, directed by his last will, that his body should have Christian burial; and prescribed the manner, he selected the place for that purpose. How shall we expound that will? It has been expounded for us; and that too, by one,

who was the partner of his perils and triumphs, his labors and councils. One, who shared with him all life could give-and stood by him in the hour of dissolution. Think you, that she would have violated his will; and that too in the beginning of her bereavement; in the first dark hours of her earthly desolation? "Taught by his great example," she gave up those remains at the call of her country.

I cannot join in the pious incantation of those who would, in imagination, call up the mighty dead, and put them to inquisition, concerning these obsequies. Who, if he might, would bring back from the blessedness of heaven, to the cares of earth, one purified spirit; or for a moment interrupt the felicities of those realms of reality, by any thing which agitates human feelings, in this region of dust and shadows? Permit me to learn from his life, what his country may, with propriety, do with his remains, after his death. When that immortal. soul, now as we trust in beatitude, inhabited and animated his mortal part, where was the place, what was the service to which the voice of his country called him, and he was not there? In the toils of war, in the councils of peace, he was, soul and body devoted to that people, whom he labored through life to build up into one great nation. Should that

body at this time be less at the service of his country, than when alive, with the imperishable soul it was, Washington, and walked the world, for human welfare? If his whole life doth tell us, that he placed himself at the call of his country, then truly where should all that remains, be finally found, but where the same voice would place them?

We would not raise over him "a pyramid, a monument, like the eternal mountains." No, the folly of ancient ambition, has perished from the earth, while these its monuments still stand unmoved upon its surface. This House, we trust will endure as long as this nation endures. Let this be the Mausoleum of Washington. We would place his remains in the cemetery built for that purpose, under the centre of that dome which covers the Rotunda. Directly over this on that floor, we would erect a pedestrian statue of that man, sufficiently colossal, and placed on a pedestal so high and massy, as might be required to fill and satisfy the eye, in the centre of that broad and lofty room, which, probably, has no equal in the architecture of the world.

The ever-during marble will give to coming generations the form and the features of Washington; and the traveller of future ages shall learn where he

may find his tomb. This House, this Mausoleum of one, who prospered by Divine assistance, performed more for his country and for the human race, than any other mortal, shall be a place of pilgrimage for all nations. Hither will come the brave, the wise, the good, from every part of our country; not to worship, but to stand by the sepulchre and to relume the light of patriotism at the monument of Washington.

A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER.

BY SARAH H. WHITMAN.

"Yet one more smile, departing distant sun

Ere o'er the frozen earth the loud winds run

And snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.”—Bryant.

A DAY of golden beauty!-Through the night
The hoar-frost gathered o'er each leaf and spray
Weaving its filmy network, thin and bright
And shimmering like silver in the ray
Of the soft, sunny morning-turf and tree
Pranct in its delicate embroidery,

And every withered stump and mossy stone,
With gems encrusted and with seed-pearl sown ;
While in the hedge the frosted berries glow,

The scarlet holly and the purple sloe,