The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-04-23
REV. DR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Easter Thoughts"

TEXT: And the field OF EphT0n, 7Ch1ch
was in Mdchpelah Which 1vas before Mamre,
the field and the caue aUhich aras therein.
and all the trees that soere in the field, that
were in all the borders round about, Uere
made sure unto Abraham."-Gen. xiii. =,
II, Is.
Here is the first cemetery ever laid CUT
Machpelah was its name. 1twas an arbores-
cent beauty, where the wound of death was
bandaged with foliage. Abraham, arich man.
not being able to bribe the King of Terrors,
proposes here, as far as possible, to cover up
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
wears, had expired-Abraham is negotiating
for family plot for her last slurnber:
Ephron owned this real estate, and
after, in mock sympathy for Abra-
for it, now sticks on big price-four hum
dred shekels of silver This cemetery lot is
paid for and the transfer made, in the pres
ence of witnesses in public place, for there
were no deeds and no halls ofrecord in those
early times. Then in cavern OF limestone
rock Abraham put Sarah, and, d few years
after, himself followed, and then Isaac and
Rebekah, and then Jacob and Leah. En-
powered, picturesque and memorable Mach
palah! That Gods acre" dedicated by
Abraham has been the mother OF innumera-
BILE mortuary observances. The necropolls
of every civilized land has We'd with its me-
tropolis.
The most beautiful hills of Europe outside
the great cities are covered with obelisk and
funeral vase and arched gateways and col
umns and parterres in honor of the lnhu-
mated. The Appiar Way Of Rome was
bordered by sepulchral commentators.
For this purpose Pisa has its arcades OF mar.
BILE sculptured into exquisite bas rellets and
the features of dear faces that have van.
ished. Genoa has its terraces cut into
tombs; and Constantinople covers with cy-
press the silent habitations; and Paris hasits
Pere-Lachaise, on whose height rests Baizac
and David and Marshal Ney and Cuvier and
La Place and Moliere, and a mighty group
of warriors and poets and painters and mu.
sicians. In all foreign nations utmost genius
on all sides is expended in the work or In
terment. mummification and incineration.
Our own country consents to be second to
none in respect to the lifeless body. Every
CITY and town and neighborhood Of any in
telligence or virtue has, not many miles
away, its sacred inclosure, where affection
has engaged sculptor's chlsel and horlsts
spade and artifcer in metals. Our own city
has shown its religion as well as Its art, IN
the manner in which it holds the memory OF
those who have passed forever away, by Its
Cypress Hills and its Evergreens and its Cal
yary 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 over
look the sea, and by lakes embosomed IN an
Eden of flowers, our American Westminster
Abbey, an Acropolis of mortuary architec-
ture, q Pantheon of mighty ones assembled,
elegies in stone Iliads in marble. whole gen.
erations in peace waiting for other genera
tions to Join them. No dormitory of breath
less 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 Hanson Cox. Among
musicians, the renowned Gottschalk and the
holy Thomas Hastings. Among the philan-
thropists, Peter Cooper and Isaac I. Hopper
and Lucretia Mott and Isabella Graham,
and Henry Bergh, the apostle OF mercy to
the brute creation. Among the literati, the
Carys, Alice and Phoebe, James K. Paulding
and John G. SAKE. Among the journalists,
Bennett and Raymond and Greeley. Among
scientists Ormsby Mitchell, warrior as well
soldiers ''Old Stars" the Drapers, splendid
men, as I we'll know, one of them my
teacher, the other my classmate.
Among inventors, Elias Howe, who,
through the sewing machine, did more to
alleviate the tolls of womanhood than any
man that ever lived, and Professor Morse,
who gave us magnetic telegraphy; the
former doing his work with the needle, the
latter with the thunderbolt. Among physi-
clans and surgeons, Joseph G. Hutchinson:
aud Marion Sims, and DR.. Valentine Mott,
with the following epitaph VIII en- ne ordered
cut in honor Of the Christian religion: My
implicit faith and hope is in a mercltnl ke-
deemer, who is the resurrection and the life.
Amen and Amen" This is our American
Machpelah, as sacred to us as tho Mach
pelahin 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 I buried Leah"
At this Easter service ask and answer
what may seem novel question, but it will
be found, before l get through, practical
and useful and tremendous question. What
will Resurrection day do for the cemeteries?
First, I remark it will be their supernatural
tomary in all lands to strew flowers over
the mounds of the departed. 1t may have
been suggested by the fact that Christ's
tomb was in a garden. AMI when I say
garden I do not mean garden OF these latl-
tudes. The late frosts of spring and the
early frosts of autumn are so near to eacn
other that there are only a few months
of flowers in the field All the flowers
we see to-day had to be petted and coaxed
and put under shelter or they would not have
bloomed at ALL They are the children of the
conservatories. But at this season and
through the most of the year, the Holy Land
is all ablush with floral opulence. You lind
all the royal family of flowers there, some
that you supposed indigenous to the far north,
and others indigenous to the far south-the
daisy and hyacinth, crocus and anenione,
tulip and water lily, geranium and ranuncu
lus, mignonette and sweet marjoram.
In the college at Beyrout you may see
dred kinds of Holy Land flowers; while
among the trees are the oak Of frozen climes,
and the tamarisk of the tropics, walnut and
willow, ivy and hawthorn, ash and elder,
pine and sycamore If such floral and bo-
tanical beauties are the wild growths of tho
fields think of what garden must be in Pal
estine! And in such garden Jesus Christ
slept after, on the soldiers spear. His last
drop of blood had coagulated. And then see
how appropriate that all our cemeteries
should be foralized and tree shaded. In June,
Greenwood is Brooklyn's garden.
''Well, then" you say, "how can you
make out that the Resurrection day will
beautify the cemeteries? Will it not leave
them plowed up ground? On that day
there will be an earthquake, and will not this
split the polished Aberdeen granite, as well
as the plain slab that can afford but the two
words, Our Mary, or Our Charley?"
WE'LL y will tell you how Resurrection day
will beautify all the cemeteries. 1t will be by
bringing up the faces that were to us once, and
in our memories are to us now, more beautl.
full than any Gala lily. and the forms that
are to us more graceful than any willow by