Note 15 — Chapter III

The practice, common among Catholics, of visiting the tombs of their family, and honouring the spot where the remains of their relatives or friends rest, is not an ostentatious ceremony, but an humble act of devotion, in which we must believe that the heart of the supplicant is deeply engaged. In the niches of the Pantheon at Lima, the renewal of flowers week after week, and even year after year, bears witness that filial or conjugal affection is still cherished in the heart long after the object of endearment has been removed from those who only survive to deplore their own loss, and with tender sorrow pray for the spirit of the departed. Whoever has visited the cemetery of Père la Chaise, in Paris, must have been struck by the attention of the living to the dead,—the daily decorations of the grave, and the prayer offered up by pious friends; nor can we suppose any person capable of viewing with cold indifference the flowery neatness which surrounds those monumental tombs, which in Père la Chaise seem to triumph over the silence of the grave.