Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1877 — Pictures of Death. [ARTICLE]

Pictures of Death.

In the temple of Juno, at Elio, Sleep, and his twin brother, Death, were represented as children reposing in the arms of N ight. On various funeral monuments, of the ancients the Genius of Death is sculptured ss a beautiful youth, leaning on an inverted torch, in the attitude of repose, his wings folded and hisfeet Crossed. In such peaceful attractive forms did the imagination of ancient poets and sculptors represent death. Ana these were men in whose souls the religion of Nature was like the light of stars: beautiful, but faint and cold. Strange that in later days this angel of God, which leads us with * gentle hand into the land of the great departed, into the siflht land,” should have been transformed into a monstrous and terrific thing! Buch is the spectral rider on the white horse, such the ghastly skeleton with, scythe and hour-glaM; the reaper, whose name is Death! One ofthe most popular themes of poetry fa the middle ages, and continuing down even into modem times, was the Dance of Death. In almost all languages is it written—file apparition of the grim specter putting a sudden stop to all business, soft leading men away into the “remarkable retirement” of the grave. It is written in an ancient Spanish poem and painted on a wooden bridge In Switzerland. The designs of Holbein are well known. The most striking among them is that where, from a group of children sitting round a cottage hearth, Death has taken one by the hand and is leading it. out of the door. Quietly and unresisting goes the little child, and in in countenance no grief, but wonder only; while the other children are weeping and stretching forth their hands in vain toward their departing brother. It is a beautiful design in all save the skeleton. An angel had been better, with folded wings and torch inverted.—Xmg- ‘ , Ths three great staples of the West—bacon and bams, lard and pork—oonttitute two-thirds of the total value of all kinds of provisions annually exported. In fiscal year 1876 these three articles amounted to <87,837,963, or to 62.37 per cent, ofthe $108,768,446 of exported provisions. It is noteworthy that this value largely exceeds the like export in any other year in cur history, the next largest having been $85.976,904 in fiscal year 1878.— Chicago Inter.(ktan. —Even a tramp has his advantages in