THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON.

BY EDWIN.

On the sunny banks of the Potomac, nine miles above Washington city, stands Mount Vernon; and there in the side of a little hill is the tomb of Washington. A small arched excavation with a brick breastwork, overhung with the wild vine and careless shrubbery and an irongrated door in front, represents the exterior appearance of the old hero's resting-place. In front of it, towards the south, lies a deep woody dell. To the left, along the slope of the hill, is a thicket where the grape-vine and greenbrier, creeping upon the wild-wood make many a shady summer bower. To the north, and round the hill, is the house in which the hero resided. To the east, and far below, the deep blue Potomac murmers by in tranquil glory; fit scenes are these to embosom the hallowed spot where the father of his country slumbers.

But these scenes, though lovely in themselves, do not long attract the attention of the visitor to Mount Vernon. He looks at the little vault in the side of the hill and feels that there is more than magic there. The marble pannel above the door is probably the first that attracts his attention. No doubt he expects the writing upon it to be some pompous eulogy on his heroic deeds; but is no doubt agreeably disappointed when, instead of it, he reads these impressive lines: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me though he were dead yet shall he live." While France wrote upon her graveyard gates, "Death is an eternal sleep," Americans are bold in publishing to men and nations from the gates of this tomb that they believe Washington lives.

Next the visitor looks through the iron grate into the silent vault. Here the ground begins to be still more sacred. A deep silence reigns within the charnel; nothing stirs save when the mellowed light of a sunbeam falls through the grate upon the emblems of death within and is chased again by the shadow of the spectator. Even at noon-day there is a gray twilight within which hangs its semi-transparent drapery on every object. After looking, however, for a few moments into the dusky vault, the objects begin to stand out more distinctly. Then appears the sarcophagus or marble coffin from its deep retirement, in which are deposited the remains of Washington. On its lid are sculptured the United States arms and insigna, with a shield and flag of thirteen stripes upon which is perched the American eagle, with open wings, clutching the arrows and olive branch with her talons. Near it, on the lid, towards the foot of the coffin, in bold and deep-sculptured letters is the simple name-WASHINGTON. The spectator feels that there is a world of meaning in that single, modest name, Washington, and yet it seems naked. He asks himself, Why is it not written General Washington?-why did they not write the hero of Yorktown?-why not First President of the United States?—and more than all, why not write "Father of his Country?" He looks again, and concludes that

the one word means all, and more than all the rest. To one who has been taught to prattle long titles before kings and emperors, it may seem naked and unmeaning; but we know what it means. It has been music to us in childhood; we learned its meaning upon a parent's knee, or from some old revolutionary grandfather, who told us with tears in his eyes, of the victories he saw achieved by the good old general. And as we gaze upon that single name upon the lid of his coffin we wish nothing added. It is encircled by a halo of joyful remembrances that can never die. And though that tomb should be despoiled by the hands of tyrants, and the marble slab be left to moulder in loneliness away, yet will the shades of Mount Vernon be a shrine for the pilgrim patriot. There will he sit, though a tyrant should reign over the land where his fathers bled, and feed his grief on that remembered name. To him the winds would have a voice. The zephyrs of evening, though they sighed over ruins, as well as the murmurs of the quiet-rolling Potomac, would whisper-Washington!

"So sleeps the brave who sinks to rest
By all his country's wishes blest!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck his hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod,
Than fancy's feet have ever trod.

"By fairy hands his knell is rung,
By forms unseen his dirge is sung;
His honor comes a pilgrim gray

To bless the turf that wraps his clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there."

Some may have thought this is a rustic cemetery indeed. No pyramid, no obelisk, no monumental column, no sculptured mausoleum from Italy, no exotic shrubbery, no flowers from the climes of the sun to bloom on his grave. True-neither were his notions on government sculptured and polished by a foreign hand: neither did he learn the means of war from Hannibal and Cæsar, who "whelmed nations in blood and wrapt cities in fire." His sword was not made in the East, and dipped in the poisonous ire of tyrants, nor was it baptized, like that of Alexander: "Conquest and Power." It was made in the land which it guarded, and baptized: "Our Country and our Homes." The rural and rustic bushes, then, that hang over the hoary vault at Mount Vernon, are its proper ornament-enough that they grow in Freedom's soil. The only proper tower that can be raised to the memory of Washington must be built of grateful hearts. Such an one has long since been reared, broad as this empire, and high as our thoughts soar when they visit him in bliss. Every one must ornament his own grave or it will not be ornamented. Every action he performs in his life will be either a flower or a thorn for his tomb. Every one must plant his own laurels and cypresses, and the tears of postereity will water them; and if, when he dies, he has not planted them they cannot be planted by another. Think you that pyramids high as those of the Ptolemies, overhung with ivy, in groves of cypress and willow could ever hallow, the names of Arnold and Burr? No. Traitors and tyrants, though dead, are in the hearts of the people

traitors and tyrants still. And though their monuments should reach the clouds, they would but serve as so many channels to draw the vengeance of heaven and earth upon their unhallowed ashes. On the contrary, when a name is connected by good deeds with history and song -and more than all, if it is embalmed in the affections of the people, no monument is his best monument.

For the tomb of one who has acted well his part in life seek the loneliest spot on earth. Let not the hum of cities intrude on its expressive silence. Let not the tramp of busy feet waken a listless echo where the good man sleeps. Let it be away from the noisy whirl of man's little play. Like that of our hero, in the wildness of nature, by the side of a sunny stream, where twilight falls earliest, where summer lingers longest, and where the eddying sound of the far-off church bell delights to linger. Let the soldier who falls in battle sleep on his battle-ground with his trusty sword beside him. But let the hero whom God preserves return, like one who has run a good race, to take his rest amid the scenes of his home. Here let the same lonely wild-flower which he loved in youth, when like him it first opened to greet the smiles of the joyous world, be an emblem still, and shake its fading petals over the bier.

Such is the tomb of the great father of his country. He rests on the green banks of his own loved river. No pyramid there to kiss the lightning. The small marble slab tells no boisterous tale, yet there is "a spell that holds the passenger forgetful of his way."

La

Do you ask why we invite you to go to the house of mourning. We answer, if you are a citizen, you go to strengthen your love of country. If you are a politician, you go to learn calm lessons on Government. If you are a soldier, you go to learn the mercies of war; and if you are a traitor, you go to shake and tremble. Lafayette left the bosom of his friends and his country, and fought the battles of freedom for us. fayette came also years afterwards to weep at the tomb of Washington. When a friend whom we have followed and loved through life dies, we love to go to his tomb to meditate, to call to mind his kindness, and sorrow over our conduct if we have injured him. His virtues appear green as the sod that covers him, and though memory should remove the veil from some error that slumbers with him we are content to

"Weep over it in silence and close it again."

Many a lesson may be learned at the tomb of the departed. In the cities of the dead is the place to learn the language of another world. The very stones teach a deeper lesson than is written upon them. Their language is "dust to dust, ashes to ashes;" and the neglected wildflower that hangs over the bier its lonely head, speaks in language which cannot be misunderstood how soon the glow on beauty's cheek must fade and die. Ossian never breathes such sweet and mellow strains as when he sits sad and unfriended amid the wrecks of his country, and from the tomb of a fallen hero, teaches the note of grief to the silence of Morven. Mount Vernon is the center point from which the nation's spirit evolves itself. In it is embosomed the nation's patriotism. It receives the voice of the nation and echoes it into the heart of every citizen. The spirit which actuated Washington does not sleep with him. It has become the life of the republic. The fountain at which the genius of Liberty

drinks the atmosphere in which she soars. The boasted republics of the olden time nourished the genius of their Liberty upon the tripodfeeding it upon the fumes of the Delphic Oracle-which made it rise towards Heaven in fitful starts to fall back more fearfully to earth. But Washington taught the eagle to soar into purer heavens. He found the rock of true freedom, and upon it he plumed the eagle's wing-and it rose successfully. It was not like the sky-lark of the Emerald Isle which had too much of the mists of ignorance on its wing; and when it did attempt its way towards heaven, the lion of England howled, it fell back bleeding to the earth, and again built its humble nest in the shamrock. Not so the eagle, which has its nest at Mount Vernon. Though the strong tower upon which it there had its ærie lies low, it has others rocks cut from that, for refuge throughout the nation. The lion once howled at New Orleans, unchained by Packingham; but the eagle flew to its ærie in the Hickory and mocked him. He howled again at Perrysburg and Tippecanoe, joined by the wild war-cry of the Red man, but the eagle perched upon the green Buckeye and was safe. Ever since it hovers for pastime over Mount Vernon; casting ever and anon a glance at the hero's tomb, and then at the people. Let no sneaking sycophant presume on its destruction; by decoying it with wily ruse from its citadel, as long as the Hickory and Buckeye are green on our shores.

Every nation, like an individual, must have a soul-must be a living organism. And though the soul of a nation lives in part in each individual citizen, yet it has a centre of activity from which it continually expresses itself. In a monarchy that centre is the throne and its minions of power. Its first expression is the promp and pride of kings. The second is that retinue of power which clusters around the court. The third is the aristocracy which are the branches of the kingly tree, spreading themselves over the whole country upon which, lastly, the laboring class is the fruit, subject to be plucked and shaken as the pleasure or wants of their lordly masters may demand. Such is the constitution of a monarchy. Its soul is composed of power built up of the ruins of man's dearest rights; its evolution is the wielding of that power by those to whom it does not belong for their own aggrandizement-and its perfect efflorescence is abject tyranny-a daring attempt to abrogate that eternal law of liberty by which God has constituted each individual within the sphere of his own will, a free and independent spirit.

In a republic like ours there is also a soul; but it lives in a different organism. It has a different centre-a different evolution-and different fruits. Its soul is composed of the proud spirits of Seventy-Six, who have fallen asleep; among whom Washington still wears the diadem, though it be in his lowly bed. True, he sits not on a throne with a kingly septre. His spirit sits upon a viewless throne at Mount Vernon, and sways, not one but millions of sceptres; for he sways one in the heart of every true American. There at the tomb of Washington sits the spirit of Liberty holding its mighty spell. There with mystic hand she touches the thousand strings which make, throughout our Union, between heart and heart, a wonderous harmony. This explains the secret of the astonishing concord between the States. They are like an instrument of many strings played and kept in tune by that same unseen

but powerful hand.

South Carolina thought once it could play best

upon its own string, but it was countermanded by a voice from

"The dead, but sceptered sovereign, who still rules
Men's spirits from his urn."

No doubt that voice came to many an one during that rebellion in all
its power.
And as that State had raised its hand to strike the blow
which was to sever them from the Union, it was as if Washington him-
self was calling to them from heaven, like the angel to Abraham on
Mount Moriah: Tear not that stripe from the banner upon which it has
been painted by the blood of your fathers.

Such is the influence which flows from Mount Vernon into the minds of the people, which shows it to be without a figment the soul of the nation the patriot's Mecca, towards which every one who loves his country will direct his eyes. And especially in these days of political darkness and turmoil; when anarchy and misrule are sitting with brazen fronts in high places when party spirit is shaking our institutions— when the public press, like an adder's tooth, is transfusing both political and moral poison throughout every avenue of society-when those in whom the nation reposes its most sacred trust are ready for self-interest to betray their sacred trust, and the rights of the people often become, in the trust of their legislators, like sacred incense in the hands of devils-is it not time that we arouse our love of country, and our love for the simple power of truth and honesty, by which Washington steered the ship

"Not in the sunshine and the smiles of heaven,
But wrapt in whirlwinds and begirt with storms."

Let us learn at his tomb a lesson in silence from this great and good man. To make a pilgrimage to his tomb on the anniversary of our country's freedom, is the best celebration of it. Stand and look upon his sarcophagus. There is the eagle bending over his slumbers with its olive-branch, as if it would beckon to party spirit to cease its rankings lest it should disturb the old hero's repose. There lies the flag-nobly did he bear it up amid the storms of war-no stripe is soiled, no star is blotted out. There lies the sword-it made tyrants tremble, but never caused a widow or an orphan's tear; its motto was: "My conscience, my country, and my home." It has done its work well and lies at rest upon the arm that wielded it.

"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

He sleeps well, the hero-soldier. Should you ever be called to stand between the tyrant and your country in the fearful fight-should ever the drum which you now follow in peace become the tocsin to call you to meet the foe at the cannon's mouth, it will nerve your arm in peril's hour to think of the tomb of Washington.

He sleeps well, the Christian. Let the boasting infidel retire and ponder. He who would not bow before British minions did not hesitate to bow before his God. We are informed that when the army was encamped at Valley Forge, the hero was seen to pray in a retired grove. It is known that that was darkest time in all the conflict. The country