The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-04-07
REV. .TALMAGE ON EASTER
MACHPELAH THE FIRST GENIE
Terry EVER LAID OUT.

Abraham's Idea in Selecting it to
Hide the Ravages of Death in
Arborescent Reauty - What VIII
Resurrection Day Do for the Gem
eteries?
BROOKLYN. N. Y, April 6.-The Academy
of Music was appropriately decorated to-
day for Easter service, and the regular
artists OF the Brooklyn Tabernacle We're
assisted by eminent musical performers.
The hymn sung before the sermon was:
'swe praise thee. O God, for the son of thv love.
For Jesus who died and is now gone above"
The subject of DIR. Talmags's sermon was
"Machpelah: or Easter Thoughts" It was
based on the words ia Gen. xiii, 1918: "And
the field of Ephron, which was in Mach
pelah, 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 tie sermon
in full:
Here is tie first cemetery ever laid out.
Machpelah was its name 1t was an arbor-
escent 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 dled-that remark
able 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-Abraham is nego-
tiating for family plat for her last slum-
Der. Ephron owned this real estate, and
after, in mock sympathy for Abraham, re-
fusing to take anything for It. now sticks
on big price-400 shekels of silver. This
cemetery lot is paid for, and the transfer
made in the presence OF witnesses in pub
lie 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, n few years after, himself fol-
lowed, and then Isaac and Rebakah, and
then Jacob and Leah. Embowered, pic
turesque, and memorable Machpelahl
That Goods acre" dedicated by Abra-
ham has been the mother of innu-
merable mortuary obseryances. The ne
cropolis Of every civilized land has We'd
with its metropolis. The most beautiful
bills Of Europe outside the great cities are
covered with obslisk and funeral vase, and
in honor Of the inhumated. The Appian
way of Rome was bordered by sspulchral
commemorations. For this purpose Pisa
has its arcades of marble sculptured into ex-
quisite bas-reliefs aud the features Of dear
faces that have vanished. Genoa has its
terraces cut into tombs, and Constantinople
covers with cypress the silent habitations
and Paris has its Pere-la-Chaise, on whose
nights rest Balzac and David and Marshal
NV a II
and mighty group OF warriors and poets
and painters and musicians. In all foreign
nations utmost genius on all sides is ex-
pended in the work of interment, muminif-
cation and incinsration.
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 enclosure, where affection
has engaged sculptor's chisel and florists
spade and artificer in metals Our own city
has shown lis religion as well as It's art, in
the manner in which it holds the memory
OF those who have passed forever away, by
Its Cypress Hills and its Evergresns and its
Calvary and Holy Cross and Friends' cen1e-
teries. All the world knows Of our
Greenwood, with now about two
hundred and fifty Thousand in
hsbitants sleeping among hill; that
overlook the sea, and by lakes embosomad
in an Eden of flowers, our American West
minister Abbey, an Acropolis of mortuary
architecture, Pantheon of mighty ones
ascended, elegies in stone, lliads in marble,
whole generations in peace waiting for other
generations to join them. No dormitorv Of
breathless sleepers in all the world has so
many mighty dead. Among preachers of
the gospel, Bethune and Thomas Dewitt.
and Bishop James and Tying, and Abeel the
missionary, and Beecher and Budington.
and McClintock and Inskip, and Bangs and
Chaplin, and Noah Sche lck and Samuel
Hanson Cox. Among musicians, the re-
nowned Gottschalk and the holy Thom-
as Hastings. Among philanthropists, Peter
Cooper and Isaac T. Hopper and Lucreta
Mott and Isabella Graham and Henry
Bergh, the apostle of mercy to tho brute
creation. Among the hterati, the Careys,
Alice and Phoebe, James K Pauldink and
John G. SAKE. Among journalists, Bennett
and Raymond ana Greeley. Among sci
entists, Ormsby Mitchell, warrior as well as
astronomer, and lovingly called by his
soldiers "Old Stars; the Diapers, splendid
men, as | we'll know, oae of the1l my
teacher. the other my classmate
Amolg inventors, Elias Howe, who
through the sewing machine did more
to alleviate the tolls of womanhood
than any man that ever lived, aad Prof.
Morse, who gave US magnetic telegraphy
the former doing his work with the needle,
the latter with the thunderbo,t. Among
physicians and surgeons, Joseoh G. Hutch
inson, and Marion Sims, and Dr. Valentine
Mott, with the following epitaph which he
ordered cut in honor of the christian reli-
gion: my implicit faith end hope is in a
merciful Redeemer, who is the resurrection
and the life. Amen and amen.n This is
our American MachDelah, as sacred to usias
the Machpelah in Canaan, Of which Jacob
uttered thap pastoral poem in one verse
There they buried Abraham, and Sarah
his wife, there they buried Isaac, and Re-
bekah his wife; and there | buried Leah. y
AT this Easter service / ask and answer
what may seem novel question, but it will
be found, before get through. a practical
and useful and tremendous question: What
will resurrection day do for the cemeteries
First. / remark, it will bs their supernal
beatifcation. At certain seas 7us it is Gus
tomary in all lands to strew flowers over
the mounds of the departed It may have
been suggested by the fact that Christ's
tomb was 10 garden. And when say
garden, do not mean garden Of these
latitudes. TIE late frosts Of spring, and the
early frosts of autumn are so near to each
other that taere are only few months of
flowers in the field. All the flowers we see
to-day had to be petted and coaxed. and
pat under shelter or they would not
have bloomed at all. They are the children
of the conservatives. But at this season,
and through the most of the year, the Holy
Land is all ablush with floral opalence.