The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1890-04-17
AN EASTER SERMON.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Resurrection Morn,
When the Regenerated Bodies Shall Rise
and Participate In the Grand Re-
union-A Problem In the Cos
pei Algebra.

In Jne brooklyn Academy Oh MuSlc,
from the text:
And the field OF Ephrou, which was in
Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the
| field and the cave which was therin, and all
the trees that were in the field, that were
| In all the borders rou nd about, were made
| sure unto Abraham.-Gen. kill, IL, IS;
Here is the first cemetery ever laid
out Machpelah was its name. 1t was
an arborescent beauty, where the wound
| Of death was bandaged with foliage.
| Abraham, a rich man not being able to
bribe the King of Terrors, proposes
| here, as far as possible, to cover up his
ravages. He had no doubt previously
| noticed this region, and now that Sarah,
| his wife, had died-that remarkable
person who, at ninety years of age, had
born to her the son Isaac, and who now,
after she had reached one hundred and
| twenty-seven years, had expired-Abra-
ham is negotiating for a family plot
for her last slumber. Ephron owned
| this real estate, and after, in mock SYM
pathy for Abraham, refusing to take
| any thing for it, now sticks on big
price-four hundred sheckles of silver.
This cemetery lot is paid for, and the
| transfer made, in the presence of wit
| nesses in a public place, for there were
no deeds and no halls of record in those
| early times. Then in a cavern of lime
stone rock Abraham put Sarah, and, a
| few years after, himself followed, and
| then Isaac and Rebekah, and then
Jacoband Leah. Embowered, pictur-
esque, and memorable Machpelah! That
| God 's-acre" dedicated by Abraham has
been the mother of innumerable mort
ury observances.
| The metropolis of every civilized land
has We'd with its metropolis. The most
beautiful hills of Europe outside the
| great cities are covered with obelisk
and funeral vase and arched gateways
and columns, and parterres in honor OF
the inhumated. The Appian Way of
Rome was bordered by sepulchral COM
| memorations. For this purpose Pisa has
| its arcade of marble sculptured into ex-
quisite bass reliefs and the features of
dear faces that have vanished. Genoa has
its terraces cut into tombs; aud Con-
stantinople covers with cypress the
| silent habitations, and Paris has its
Pere-la-Chaise, on whose heights rest
Balzac and David and Marshal Ney and
Culver and La Place and Moliere, and
| a mighty group of warriors and poets
and painters, and musicians. In all
foreign nations utmost genius on all
sides is expended in the work of inter
ment, mummification and incineration.
Our own country consents to be sec
ond to none in respect to the lifeless
body. Every city and town and
neighborhood of any intelligence or
virtue has, not many miles away,
its sacred inclosure, where affection
has engaged sculptor's chisel and flor
lists spade and artifcer in metals Our
own city has shown its religion as we'll
as it's art in the manner in which 1t
holds the memory of those who have
passed forever away by it's Cypress Hills
and its Evergreens and its Calvary and
Holy Cross and Friends cemeteries.
All the world knows of our Greenwood,
with now about two hundred and fifty
thousand inhabitants sleeping among
hills that overlook the sea, and by lakes
embosomed in an Eden of flowers our
American Westminster Abbey, an
Acropolis of mortuary architecture, a
Pantheon of mighty ones ascended,
elegies in stone, Iliads in marble.
whole generations in peace wait
ing for other generations to join
them. No dormitory Of breathless
sleepers in all the world has so
many mighty dead. Among preachers
of the Gospel, Bethune and Thomas De-
Witt, and Bishop James and Tying, and
Abeel the missionary, and Beecher and
Buddington and McClintock and Inskip
and Bangs and Chaplin and Noah
Schenck and Samuel Hans Cox. Among
musicians, the renowned Gottschalk,
and the holy Thomas Hastings. Among
philanthropists, Peter Cooper and Isaac
7. Hopper and Lucretia Mott and Isa-
bella Graham, and Henry Bergh, the
apostle of mercy to the brute creation.
Among the iterati, the Careys, Alice
and Phoebe, James K. Paulding, and
John G. SAKE. Among journalists, Ben
nett and Raymond and Greeley. Among
scientists, Ormsby Mitchell, warrior as
we'll as astronomer, and lovingly called
by his soldiers ''Old Stars" the Diapers,
splendid men, as we'll know, one of
them my teacher, the other my class
mate. Among inventors, Elias Howe,
who, through the sewing machine, did
more to alleviate the tolls of woman
hood than any man that ever lived, and
Prof. Morse, who gave us magnetic tel
egraphy; the former doing his work
with the needle, the latter with
the thunderbolt Among physicians
and surgeons, Joseph c. Hutch
inson, and Marion Sims, and DR.. Valen-
tine Mott, with the following epitaph,
which he ordered cut in honor of the
Christian religion: "My implicit faith
and hope is in a merciful Redeemer,
who is the resurrection and the life.
Amen and amen" This is our American
Machpelah, as sacred to US as the
Machpelah in Canaan, of which Jacob
uttered that pastoral poem in one verse:
There they buried Abraham, and Sarah
his wife; there they buried Isaac and
Rebekah his wife; and there l buried
Leah"
At this Easter service ask and answer
what may seem novel question, but it
will be found, before I get through, Q
practical and useful and tremendous
question: What will Resurrection Day
do for the cemeteries? First. will re-
mark, it will be their supernal beautifi-
cation. At certain seasons it is GUS
tomary in all lands to strew flowers
over the mounds of the departed.
It may have been suggested by
fha fact that Chriatsa tomb uaa