The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1890-04-12
EASTER THOUGHTS.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Glories of the Resurrection.
The Respect shown to the Dead-What
VIII Resurrection Do For the Come
teries?-Death Only Rest For
the Weary Mortal.


thoughts" 1t was based on the words
In Genesis. xiii, II, IS: "And the field
OF Ephron, which was in Machpelah,
which was before Mamre, the field and
the cave which was therein, and all the
trees that were in tn. field, that were
In all b borders round about, were
made sure unto Abraham" Following
Is the sermon:
Here Is the first cemetery ever laid
out Machpelah was its name. 1t was
an arborescent beauty, where the wound
Oh death is b~andaged by foliage. Abra.
nam, a rich man, not being able to bride
the king OF %terrors, proposes here, as
Isr as possible, to cover up his ravages.
ne had no doubt previously noticed this
region, and now that Sarah, his wife,
q died--that remarkable person who
at ninety years Of age had born to her
the son Isaac, n who now, after she
had reached 127 years, had expired
Abraham is negotiating for a family
plat for her last slumber. Ephron
owned this real estate, and after, in
mock sympathy for Abraham, refusing
to take any thing for it. now sticks on a
Dig price-4Q0 shekels OF silver. This
cemetery lot Is paid for and the transfer
made in the presence of witnesses in q
public place, for there were no deeds and
no halls Of record in those early times.
Then in a cavern of limestone rock
Abraham put Sarah, and q few years
after, himself followed, and her Isaac
and Rebekah, and then Jacob and Leah.
EMPOWERED, picturesque, and memoir
able Machpelahl That 'God's-acre" dedi-
Nakn1 hwv AL..L.-. - -
OF innumerable mortuary observances.
The metropolis Of every civilized land
has We'd with his 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 wal bordered by s~epulchral COM
memorations. For this purpose Pisa
has its arcades Of marble s%culptured in
70 exquisite bas-reliefs and the features
Of dear faces that have vanished.
Genoa has its terraces cut into tombs;
Constantinople covers with cypress the
.habitations; and Paris has its Pere-la-
Chatse, on whose heights rest Balzac
and David aud Marshal Ney und Cuvier,
and La Place and Moliere, and a mighty
group OF warriors and poets and painters
and musicians. In all foreign nations
tmost genius on all sides Is expended
in the work OF interment, mummihca-
tion and incarceration
Our W country consents to be sec
ond to zone in respect to the ~lifeless
body. Every city and town and neigh
borhood of any intelligence or virtue
has, not many miles away, its sacred
enclosure where affection has engaged
sculptor's chisel and florists spade and
artifcer in metals. Our own city has
shown its religion as well as its art in
the In which 1t holds the mem
DRY OF those who have passed forever
away. by Its Cypress Hills and its Ever
greens and it's Calvary and its Holy
Cross and Friends cemeteries. All the
world knows of our Greenwood, with
now about two hundred and fifty thou
sand inhabitants sleeping among hills
that overlook the sea and lakes en-
bosomed in an Eden OF flowers, our
American Westminster abbey, an Acrop-
oils Of mortuary architecture, a Pantheon
OF mighty ones assembled, elegies In
stone, Iiads in marble, whole genera
tons in peace. waiting for other genera
lions TO join them. No dormitory of
breathless sleepers in all the world has
80 many mighty dead.
This is our American Maehpeiah, 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 I buried Leah" &
AT this Easter service / ask and
answer what may seem o novel question,
but IL will be found, before ! get
through. D practical and useful and
tremendous question: What will resur-
rection day do for the cemeteries? First,
I remark, 1t will be their supernal
Qualification. At certain seasons 1t is
customary in all lands 20 strew flowers
over the mounds of the departed. 1t
may have been suggested by the fact
that Christ's tomb was In a garden. And
when l say q garden, ! do not mean o
garden of these ATTITUDES. The late
fnosts Of spring and the early frosts Of
autumn are so near to each other that
there are only a few months Of flowers
An the Geld. 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
chilaren OF the conservatives. But at
this season. and through the most of the
year, the Holy Land Is all ablush with
6oral o~pulence. You find all the royal
family Of flowers there. some that you
supposed indigenous to the North,
and Others indigenous to the far
South-the daisy and hyacinth, crocus
and anemone. tulip and water lily,
~geranium and r%annnculus. mignonette
and sweet marjoram. in the college at
Beyrout you may see DR.. Posts collec-
ton of about eighteen hundred kinds OF
Holy Land flowers; while among trees
are the oak OF frozen chimes, and the
tamaSisk of the tropics, walnut and will
low. Ivy and hawthorne, ash and elder,
plne and sycamore. II such floral and
botanical beauties are the wild growths
OF the fields think Of what q garden
must be In Palestinel And in such q
warden Jesus Christ slept after on the
soldiers spear, his last drop Of blood
had coagulated. And thee see hoy APP
propriate that all our cemeteries should
be foralized and tree shaded. In June
Greenwood IL Brooklyn's garden.
'1Well, then" you say, show can you |
make ont that the resurrection day will
beautify the cemeteries7 win IL not
leave them a plowed up ground2 On
that day there will be an earthquake, |
and will not this split the polished
Aberdeen granite as we'll as the plain
slab that can afford but the two words, |
foW Mary or Our CharleyT"
Well, ] will tell you how resurrection
day wild beautify all the cemeteries. 1t
will be by bringing up the faces that
were to us q and in our memories
are to US now, moro beautiful than any
Gala lily and the forms that are to US
more graceful than any willow by tho
waters. Can you think OF any thing
OF those from whom we have been
parted. ] do not care which way the
tree falls In the blast OF the judgment
hurricane, or IL the plowshare that
day shall turn under the last rose leaf
and the last china aster, IL out OF the
broken sod shall come the bodies of our
loved ones not damaged, but irradiated.
The idea OF the resurrection gets easier
TO understand MS / hear the photograph
uproll some voice that talked into IL or
aupg into 1t q year ago, just before our
fx1eRA,s decease. You turn the wire
and then comes forth the very tones,
the very accentuation, the very cough,
the very song of the person that breathed
into 1t once, but is now departed. II Q
" Al--t.AAu |