IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^ £/ .« # :^ '^ ^' ^A ^ 4^ ^ i^o 1.0 1.1 us ly Hi m 2.2 14.0 2.0 IL25 MU M m%. 1.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation ^N ^\ ■1>^ ^. ^ '*'* ' *y errata ad to int ne pelure, ipon A 12 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 i- J, ( RESPECT FOR THE BURYING PLACE OF THE DEAD, A SERMON Preached in St. Paul's Church in 1848, with the view of arousing attention to the propriety of establishing a public Cemeteiy for the city. « i :I 1 ! ! ". 1 i -i ' ^ ■ _ \ -i \ J « 1 1/' t i J M 11 I ! ■ 1 i 1 i r 1 i ! i RESPECT I Preached in St. Pai attention to thi for the city. And the field of before Mamre, the 1 the trees that «»cr( round about were i the presence of th the gate of his city All these are tl their fialher spake cording to his blesi and said unto thei me with my fathe Hittite; In the ca before Mamre, in with the field of E place. There the: they buried Isaac i —Gen. xlix. 28—8 Read Matt There are utilitarian coi treat with lev tuated the pa indisputable 1 of Machpelah what matter, RESPECT FOR THE BURYING PLACE OF THE DEAD. A SERMON Preached in St. Paul's CJhurch in 1848, with the view of arousing attention to the propriety of establishing a public Cemetery for the city. And the field of Ephron, which wa» in Machpelah, which toaa before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about were made siu-e. Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. — Gen. xxiii. 17, 18. All these are the twelve tribes of Israel : and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them ; every one ac- cording to his blessing he blessed them. And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people : bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite ; In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, wliich Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying- place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there they buried Isaac and Kebekah his wife ; and there I buried Leah. —Gen. xlir. 28—31. Read Matt, xxvii. 60—66, and, Matt, zzviii. 1 — 6. There are not a few in every unfeeling and utilitarian community, who might be disposed to treat with levity, the tender sentiment which ac- tuated the patriarch in his anxiety to secure an indisputable title to the burying place in the cave of Machpelah. The language held by such is, what matter, where, or in what form, the decom- g2 ■K\ \ • t A- Li 78 posing relics ol mortality are laid ? What sig- nifies it to them, who can have no feeling of the dishonour, and can suffer nothing in the event, whether they are consigned to some hole in an obscure corner of a stranger's field, where not even a hillock shall denote their resting place, or on the highway, or within the sea mark, or in the bosom of the ocean itself, or still more revolting, be left exposed to the roving beasts of prey. The deserted relic of mortality can suffer nothing by any such fate. It cannot witness the aversion of the sensitive, nor be conscious of the rudeness that defaces its form. In any contingency, it is speedily dissolved, and the elements receiving what the elements had given, " dust to dust, con- cludes the noblest name.'' But this coarse disregard of the dead, which some have mistaken for an enlargement from popular prejudices, is after all not only at variance with our natural sentiments, and a correct tasle, but is not even superficially plausible. Nature has formed us with a love for relics — whatever they may be, — when they appertain to objects which have strongly excited our personal affec- tions, or when profoundly interesting associations are connected with them. Why that eagerness that has displayed itself in so many forms, of which the results are found in so many private and public repositaries, to collect memorials of the past, and to put upon them a value which bears no proportion to their intrinsic worth? And why the deej every corre< plates some events and our bosom exquisite ii relic, howe^ history in it emotion. Why that I visiting the which stan< the past? Is of the actioi " as with ar And if the t any objects or that shall t, on his rei emembranc Dcnefit resu sentiment, ( ter, — provi( lightened s he brought that on it rolled dark — Has he 1 wood fron should it r God shut 1 . 79 why the deeper intereiiJi excited in the mind of every correct thinkinq observer as he contem- plates some authentic memorials of remarkable events and persons? Is it not an evidence that our bosom has a chord within it, fitted to receive exquisite impressions from such objects ? The relic, however intrinsically contemptible, has a history in it, and that history is a fountain of emotion. Why that deep interest which man feels in visiting the scenes of those wonderful events which stand prominently forth in the annals of the past? Is it not, that the scene is the memento of the action, and has its history graven upon it, " as with an iron pen and lead on the rock ?" — And if the traveller bring away from the scene any objects that shall keep it in his remembrance, or that shall excite in those to whom he may give t, on his return to his native country, a livelier emembrance of that scene and its history, some Dcnefit results from the indulgence o; j- natural sentiment, even though fancy be a busy promp- ter, — provided always fancy be chaste and en- lightened and religious in her sketchings. Has he brought me a stone from Ararat ? It may be that on it the Ark rested, while yet the deluge rolled darkly and sadly over the desolated world. — Has he brought me a worn fragment of gopher wood from one of its peaks ? It may be (why should it not be?) a portion of the ark in which God shut up with his own hand the stock of a ■fti ■ff^N^^Pi I? 1^ 80 re-peopled world, of which as concerning the flesh Christ came? — Has he brought me a sun- dried brick, or the skeleton of a cormorant, or a stuffed satyr from the ruins of Babylon? It has inscribed on it the record of prophetic fulfilment. And what are the ruins of Nineveh, or Thebes, or Persepolis, but so many huge relics, consisting of mounds, and excavated cliambers, and broken columns, and fallen temples, which no one can look upon without brighter illuminations of the past, and sadder reflections on the mutability of all human grandeur. These are the sepulchral monuments of nations, and we are summoned by nature and history, taste and religion, to read their inscriptions and to moralize on their fate. But parting from those grander memorials of nations and great events, there is something still more touching in some of the humbler monuments which love and friendship have raised to perpe- tuate the memory of the departed, at least to redeem that memory for a time, from alj all de- vouring oblivion. The Egyptians and the He- brews were remarkable for the care with which they protected their dead. They ever parted from the body with a sorrowing reluctance, and were unwilling that it should lose a place in their re- membrance. They kept it long in the death chamber, ere they carried it away to the sepul- chre ; and the more opulent tried by the most ingenious arts to arrest the process of dissolution, and to preserve upon the lifeless frame all that 1 could be I that they places siti play to tlu were pla spots ami cut them face of a are seen temples, the wont inaccessi a city of contempl slumberi themselv monume their mo of such f may con And>\ of this CI sity of oi amidst Indians of their i bay, for amounc be viola driven that son »1 could be preserved of ihe litieamentsof the being that they loved. They cliose for their burying- places situations mont fitly adapted to give free play to these tender sentiments. Their sepulchres were placed in the most retired and beautiful spots amidst groves of oak and terebinth ; or they cut them out often with exquisite sculpture in the face of a mountain rock, where, to this day they are seen in thousands ; or they built over them temples, whose magnificent ruins still excite the wonder of the traveller ; or far up in some inaccessible ravine, like Petra, they consecrated a city of the dead, and repaired at intervals to contemplate amidst its silent majesty and its slumbering tenants the destiny that awaited themselves. Time has spared many of these monuments, but history contains few records of their moral influence. Yet from the congeniality of such funeral customs to the nature of man we may conclude that they were salutary. And we are not without remarkable illustrations of this care for the dead, founded in that propen- sity of our nature to which we have adverted, even amidst heathen and barbarous nations. The Indians chose some favoured spot in the solitude of their forest, or on some beautiful promontory, or bay, for the sepulchre of their tribe. They raised a mound over their dust and would not permit it to be violated. They deem it a sore calamity to be driven from the region where it lies ; and when that sore calamity has happened, they have been ! : i^ I Known to disintiT tlie drad imd carry tli<'ir relics Jilon^ witli llieni. And wln'nwrr we lin because ve of the Christ, I His eye Longmen. i refined ver be ne- !n to his rout men istoms of with the in, would ards. It }t resting- ire we are It must leeper so- iled use, the house acquaint- i ances and kindred ; to read the simple memo- rials that affection hath inscribed upon their tomb- stones ; to observe how many of our co-evals are slumbering below ; to forecast the hour when the grass shall be above our dust, as above theirs. Scenes like these in our devout frames give widcness to our conceptions, and tenderness to our heart. Eternity is there brought near ; a freer intercourse with the invisible world is enjoyed. We feel as if the spirits of the departed were hover- ing around us, and the place where their body sleeps — occasional visitants to that sacred house where they once worshipped and received the blessing which Christ dispenses to his people ; and where some still assemble to whom they are commissioned as ministering angels. The grave- yard around, and the church within it, is to our thoughts a connecting link between death and immortality. And it is worthy of the legislature of a Christian and united people to see to it,that this union shall always be maintained. In rural and thinly peopled districts it cannot be prejudicial to the public health, while it is congenial to our natural sentiments, and conducive to solemn and devout contemplation. But in cities generally, and in our own city, the Protestant places of interment present a very different condition. They lack order, continu- ance, retirement, and sacredness. Already has one Protestant burying ground been given up to the encroachments of a growing city, and once I 88 more its successor is menaced with a change. Again the frail monuments are to be demolished; again the ashes of the departed are to be disturbed or left behind ; again the noise and bustle of the liv- ing world is to be let in upon the spot selected for their long repose. Already its crowded repo- sitories cannot suffice to receive the dead, and the unprotected, unclaimed grave, is consigned for a price to new claimants. And such is the closeness and confusion that prevails there, that the visitor can with difficulty find the narrow house where the remains of his friend have been laid, — and when found, there is nothing about it to soothe the eye of taste or of affection. And yet, break up even this, as expedience or ne- cessity may constrain to be done, the link is again broken that connects us with a former generation ; names are effaced which the hearts of multitudes desire to be preserved, at least during their own day, and the lessons are obliterated which the tombstones of the past might present to the exist- ing generation. All this, if it be a necessity, is a necessity to be deplored. It offers violence to our natural feelings. It prevents our ne- cropolis from obtaining an antiquity, a circum- stance which invests such places with a solemn and impressive charm. It is revolting to our associations, which leads us to attach a sacred value to the dust of the saints. It prevents any one from uttering the words which have in them a touching pathos — " all my nearest kindred are iii I a change. jmolished; disturbed J of the liv- elected for ded repo- d, and the signed for 3h is the ils there, find the his friend is nothing affection, nee or ne- ik is again jneration ; Qultitudes their own vhich the the exist- ssity, is a violence our ne- a circuni- a solemn ig to our a sacred ^ents any i in them idred are 89 buried there, and there I wish to be gathered to my people." It may be taken as one of the evidences of advancement in the present age — for which, however, we are indebted to the example of a very remote antiquity, and to nations whom we are very much disposed to treat as less advanced than our own in the progress of civilization, — that in most of the larger cities of Europe, better arrangements for the burial of the dead have been adopted, and more agreeable to the sentiments which Christianity fosters. Cemetries of suffi- cient extent, combining where it can be attained, a variety pleasing to the eye, and such decora- tions as are congenial with the design, are pro- jected and laid out, to which the population of the district, or the casual visitor may freely repair to spend an hour in those solemn meditations upon the fate of man by which the heart may be made better. In these, several important subsidiary objects are sought to be attained. They are lo- cated beyond the centre of population, but at some convenient distance from it ; areas are laid out, far larger than can ever be required for ac- tual interment. Localities are selected, where practicable, that admit by their inequalities some- thing of the picturesque. The art of the landscape designer is called in to create ornaments suitable to the scene, and the tasteful disposition of its paths and seclusions. Designed for this special object in perpetuity, all guarantees are secured h2 I i 1 I 1 \ !• \ i \\\ t 90 for the purpose. It is made attractive to the friend and visitor : for why should not the sepul- chre of the Christian, containing as it does relics so precious, be placed in the fairest spot of earth, where nature is clothed in her most beautiful forms, where everything around may remind however faintly, of the renovated world, where " the storm of wintry time shall all be past, and one unbounded spring encompass all." Abra- ham bought the fairest field in the plain of Mamre for a burying place ; he sought it because a cave was there to protect the dust he had not ceased to love ; he preferred it because the oak and the evergreen grew there, to soothe by their shade those whose affection might prompt to yisit their tomb. And when the humanity of Chris- tendom shall become hallowed and refined like that of the old Hebrews, places shall be selected for the repose of the dead, which will allure, and not repel, the reminiscent and contemplative visits of those who loved them while alive, and who cannot forget them in their temporary separation. And were the population of this city, who are united in the fundamentals of a common faith, and who profess to be actuated by the lively hope of the same blessed resurrection, only possessed of the patriach's affectionforthe dust of their departed kindred, they could easily find in its environs a spot as lovely as the field of Ephron the Hit- tile ; and the tenderness of the old Hebrew, and the sumptuous taste of the ancient Egyptians '■-im^- r ive to the the sepul- does relics 3t of earth, beautiful y remind id, where past, and ." Abra- of Mamre ise a cave lot ceased c and the eir shade to risit of Chris- ined like J selected llure, and tive visits and who paration. who are on faith, vely hope sessed of departed environs the Hit- ew, and gyptians 91 would conspire with the purifying hopes of the Christian in stirring them without reluctance, " to weigh out the price, four hundred shekels of silver, current money, with the merchant." On some spot of the neighbouring mountain, from which the spectator could look down on the busy world below, and meditate on the brevity of its cares and disappointments, its sorrows and joys ; where the eastern sun sheds its earliest beams — emblem of that morn when all who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake ; where nature with the helping hand of taste, could easily be persuaded to give every variety of walk and terrace, of pros- pect and seclusion ; where trees as branching and verdant as the oaks and terebinths of Palestine, could soon be made to spread their shade ; whither the thoughtful one who courted solitude and the aid of affecting mementoes, might with- in an hour transport himself; whither parents might within an hour lead their children to see how green the turf is upon the grave of their slumbering play-mate, and to inculcate upon them the solemn soothing lesson that to the good " death is gain ;** whither the wronged and the care-worn might repair and obtain solace, by the contemplation of the scene where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest ; which being within the view of all classes of the citizens might often give energy to the principles of rectitude, assuage the animosities of rivalship, and invigorate the pulsations of benevolence. t [ 92 And a period might arrive, after this moun- tain necropolis had received the tenants of a cen- tury or more, when among its many monuments some would be found, inscribed with names still cherished in hallowed recollection, and a simple and unboastful memorial of their excellence, " strewed with many a holy text, which teach the rustic moralist to die." From all which the then existing generation might derive impressive les- sons of wisdom and virtue ; and strong incite- ments to follow in the path of those who have left behind them an honorable name. The obelisk of the patriot might be erected there, which multi- tudes might gaze on with grateful homage, when Canada shall have reached its higher poli- tical destiny. The tablet of the philanthropist might be erected there, to mark the spot where his ashes repose whose large and munificent li- berality continues to sustain the institutions that with him originated. The humbler grave-stone of the Christian minister may be there, to remind a race that knew him not, that their forefathers were profited by his teaching and* his prayers. And there, upon all allotted points, would be found the family-burying-place, a spot of solemn interest to the surviving lineage, as shortly to be- come that, where they also, shall rest with their fathers. — It might thus become not only the place of secure protection to the mortal remains of the dead, whom we love and reverence, but of im- pressive admonition to the living whose moral WgWWWr 93 er this moun- nants of a cen- ny monuments ^ith names still 1, and a simple ir excellence, which teach the which the then impressive les- strong incite- se who have left The obelisk of which multi- ateful homage, its higher poli- 3 philanthropist the spot where i munificent li- institutions that t)ler grave-stone there, to remind ;heir forefathers Lnd*his prayers. oints, would be I spot of solemn as shortly to be- . rest with their 3t only the place 1 remains of the nee, but of im- ng whose moral well-being we are required to promote by all the means adapted to our nature. The theme on which I have now allowed my- self to expatiate, would be deemed by you neither trivial or unimportant, did you set yourself to re- alize the certainty, that within no distant period, the dearest of those that are now entwined in your affections, and are the delight of your homes, will die ; and that, a day or two after, you will be constrained to say to some one in the lan- guage of the Father of the faithful, " give me a possession of a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight. " And sure I am, if nature in that hour of sorrow were al- lowed its fair scope, and if the heartless negli- gence of the community did not trammel you, you would bear out your dead, not to the cram- med and slovenly and ill-adorned receptacle into which this city's dead are now cast and forgotten: a place which you could not re- visit without the laceration of every feeling; — where you could not plant and tend the flower above their dust. Ah ! yon is not the place of flowers, though the turf that covers the Christian might well and properly be garnished with them; — where you could guide a friend in the hour of your tender remembrance to commemorate the virtues that never perish. No— this is not the place which in the hour of your grief you would select; — but you would choose one like that which Abraham selected for his Sarah in ?SS«SSSE^S?5 ■jmmjmMm 94 another clime, in which the oak and ever- green spread the solemnity of their shade, where the flowers springs up on the sward, and the balmy air breathes freely around ; whither you could be allured in your thoughtful moods ; — and where full security was given to you and to your children, that their last resting place would never be violated. These sentiments are sanctioned alike by nature and religion ; and the man who in the hour of a sore bereavement can freely indulge them, is blessed with that which will mitigate his sorrow, and assist his prepara- tion for our common fate.* * Since the first publication of this discourse, the Protestant inhabitants of Montreal have purchased in the rear of the Moun- tain, 76 acres, for a public cemetery, possessing all the qualities which could be desired — the seclusion, the declivities, the shelter of woods, and a wide prospect from the summit elevation. One might wish, and as respects the locality it is the only wish which remains ungratified, that the present purchase were extended to the ridge beyond Mount Hope, commanding a full view of the city ; and that there were a shorter and easier access. This, it is said, will yet be attained. The grounds are already laid out with skill. Ta^te and time will accomplish the rest. ak and ever- P shade, where sward, and und ; whither ghtful moods ; en to you and resting place sentiments are gion ; and the eavement can h that which t his prepara- le, the Protestant rear of the Moun- ' all the qualities vities, the shelter t elevation. One only wish which were extended to full view of the access. This, it ah-eadylaid out rest.