Every gravestone that you ever made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system . Our thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly , not linger with the exuviæ that confined him . In truth and reason , neither those whom we call the living , and still less the departed , have anything to do with the grave . '' `` I never heard anything so heathenish , '' said Mr. Wigglesworth , perplexed and displeased at sentiments which controverted all his notions and feelings and implied the utter waste , and worse , of his whole life 's labor . `` Would you forget your dead friends the moment they are under the sod ? '' `` They are not under the sod , '' I rejoined ; `` then why should I mark the spot where there is no treasure hidden ? Forget them ? No ; but , to remember them aright , I would forget what they have cast off . And to gain the truer conception of death I would forget the grave . '' But still the good old sculptor murmured , and stumbled , as it were , over the gravestones amid which he had walked through life . Whether he were right or wrong , I had grown the wiser from our companionship and from my observations of nature and character as displayed by those who came , with their old griefs or their new ones , to get them recorded upon his slabs of marble . And yet with my gain of wisdom I had likewise gained perplexity ; for there was a strange doubt in my mind whether the dark shadowing of this life , the sorrows and regrets , have not as much real comfort in them -- leaving religious influences out of the question -- as what we term life 's joys . THE SHAKER BRIDAL . One day , in the sick-chamber of Father Ephraim , who had been forty years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at Goshen , there was an assemblage of several of the chief men of the sect . Individuals had come from the rich establishment at Lebanon , from Canterbury , Harvard and Alfred , and from all the other localities where this strange people have fertilized the rugged hills of New England by their systematic industry . An elder was likewise there who had made a pilgrimage of a thousand miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky to visit his spiritual kindred the children of the sainted Mother Ann . He had partaken of the homely abundance of their tables , had quaffed the far-famed Shaker cider , and had joined in the sacred dance every step of which is believed to alienate the enthusiast from earth and bear him onward to heavenly purity and bliss . His brethren of the North had now courteously invited him to be present on an occasion when the concurrence of every eminent member of their community was peculiarly desirable . The venerable Father Ephraim sat in his easy-chair , not only hoary-headed and infirm with age , but worn down by a lingering disease which it was evident would very soon transfer his patriarchal staff to other hands . At his footstool stood a man and woman , both clad in the Shaker garb .
`` My brethren , '' said Father XXXXX to the surrounding elders , feebly exerting himself to utter these few words , `` here are the son and daughter to whom I would commit the trust of which Providence is about to lighten my weary shoulders .
Alfred Canterbury Ephraim Goshen Harvard day disease exuviæ gravestones slabs