Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-04-07
THOUGHTS FOR EASTER.
SERMON PREACHED BY DR.. TALMAGE
SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 1890.

The Worlds First Cemetery-Resurrectio
Day VIII Beautify All the Cemeteries.
The Dead VIII Rise Rested and More
Beautiful Than Ever Before.
BROOKLYN, April 6-The Academy
of Music was appropriately decorated
today for Easter service, and the reg
ular artists of the Brooklyn Taber-
nacle were assisted by eminent must
cal performers. The hymn sung be-
fore sermon was:
We praise thee, o God, for the Son of thy love,
For Jesus who died and is now gone above.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's sermon
was 'Machpelah; or Easter Thoughts. ,"
1t was based on the words in Gen.
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 the field, that were in all
the borders round about, were made
sure unto Abraham" Following IS
the sermon in full:
THE FIRST CEMETERY.
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 TO-
Iiare. Abraham, a rich man, not be-
ing able to bride 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 nine
tv 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-Abraham is nego-
tiating for family plot for her last
slumber EphrOn owned this real es-
tate, and after, in mock sympathy for
Abraham, refusing to take anything
for it, now sticks on a big price -four
hundred shekels of silver. This ceme-
terry lot is paid for, and the transfer
made, IN the presence of witnesses
in a public place, for there
were no deeds and no halls of
record in those early times. Then
in cavern of limestone rock Abra-
ham put Sarah, and, a few years
after, himself followed, and then Isaac
and Rebekah, and then Jacob and
Leah. Embowered, picturesque and
memorable Machpelah! That Goods
acre" dedicated by Abraham has been
the mother of innumerable mortuary
ODSefVancSS. Lie n0CIODO11S vi every
civilized land has We'd with its metrop-
oils
The most beautiful hills of Europe
outside the great cities are covered
with obelisk and funeral vase and
arched gateways and columns and par
terres in honor of the Illuminated. The
Appian Way of Rome was bordered
by sepulchral Communications. For
this purpose Pisa has its arcades of
marble scuIptured into eXquisites bas
reliefs and the features of dear faces
that have vanished. Genoa has its
terraces cut into tOmbs; and COnstan
tinople covers with cypress the silent
habitatiOns; and Paris has its Pere-La-
chaise, on whose height rests Balzac
and David and Marshal Ney and Gu
vier and La Place and Moliere, and
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, naturalization and incinera-
ton.
AMERICAS HANDSOME CEMETERIES.
Our own country consents to be sec
ond to none in respect to the llfeless
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
scuiptOrs chisei and florists spade and
artitcer in metals Our own city has
shown its religion as well as its art, in
the manner in which it holds the mem
DRY of those who have passed forever
away, by its Cypress Hills and its Ever
green's 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 embo-
sOmed in an Eden of flowers, our
American Westminster Abbey, an
Acropolis of mOrtuary architecture,
Pantheon of mighty ones assembled,
elegies in stone, Iliads IN marble, whole
generations in peace waiting for other
generations to join them. No dormi-
tory of breathless sleepers in all the
world has SO many mighty dead.
Among preachers of the gospel,
Bathune and Thomas De Witt, and
Bishop James and Tying, and Abeel
the missionary, and Beecher and Bud
dington and McClintock and Inskip
and Bangs and Chaplin and Noah
Schenck and Samuel Hanson Cox.
Among musicians, the renowned
Gottscnalk and the holy Thomas Hast
ings. Among the philanthropists, Pc
ter 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 journalists, Bennett and Ray
mond and Greeley. Among scientists,
Ormsby Mitchell, warrior as well as
astronomer, and lovingly called by his
soldiers ''Old Stars; the Diapers,
splendid men, as / well 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 womanhood
than any man that ever lived, and
Professor Morse, who gave us mag.
netic biography; the former doing his
work with the needle, the latter with
the thunderbolt. Among physicians
and surgeons, Joseph G.. Hutchinson,
and Marion Sims, and DR.. Valentine
Mott, with the following epitaph which
he ordered cut in honor of the Chris
tan 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 Mach
peIah 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 [ buried Leah"
THE WORK OF RESURRECTION DAY.
At this Easter service I ask and an
swer what may seem a novel question,
but il will be found, before I get
through, a practical and useful and
tremendous question: What will res
direction day do for the cemeteries?
First, I remark xit will be their super
nal Identification. At certain seasons
it is customary in all lands to strew
flowers over the mounds of the de-
parted. 1t may have been suggested
by the fact that Christ's tomb was IN
garden And when [ say garden do
not mean a garden of these ATTITUDES.
The late frosts of spring and the earl y
frosts of autumn are SO near to each
other that there are only few months
of flowers in the field. All the flowers
80 +OJory IoJ 70 ha 71nttaH and