This morning while examining a skull strange emotions took possession
of me--such as I never before experienced. That senseless skull had
once been the seat of deep thought and powerful passions; beaming eyes
once glistened brightly where now there was only a hollow space; that
head was once proudly erected, and the form that supported it once
mingled in the busy scenes of life. But now what a change! His very
name is forgotten--himself but a handful of dust. O mortals! behold,
and learn a lesson. His body has long since mouldered away and mingled
with the parent earth,--this skull alone remains; and yet the time
will surely come, and cannot be far distant, when "the bones shall
come together--bone to his bone"; when the sinews and the flesh shall
come upon them, the skin cover them, and the breath entering the body
the dead shall live! Will this skull come forward at "the resurrection
of the just," or ----? Oh, what an awful thought! My very blood runs
cold, and a shudder steals over me. O thou great Mediator of mankind,
intercede for me before thy Father's throne, that ere it is
everlastingly too late my unworthy name may be written in the Lamb's
book of life. (_July_ 5, 1852.)