Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-04-17
EASTER THOUGHTS.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Glories of the Resurrection.
rhe Respect Shown to the Dead-What
VIII Resurrection Do For the Gene
teries?-Death Only Rest For
the Weary Mortal.

for his subject, "Machpelah, or Easte
Thoughts" 1t was based ON the word
in Genesis, xiii, II, Is: "And the fielC
of Ephron, which was in Machpelah
which was before Mamre, the field ant
the cave which was therein, and all thu
trees that were in the field, that wer'
in all the 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 wa
an arborescent beauty, where the wound
OF death is bandaged by foliage. Abra
ham, rich man, not being able to bride
the king of terrors, proposes here, a:
far as possible, to cover up his ravages
He had no doubt previously noticed thi:
region, and now that Sarah, his wife
had dicd-that remarkable person who
at ninety years of age had born to hcl
the son Isaac, and who now, after she
had reached 1877 years, had expired
Abraham is negotiating for 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
big price-400 shekels of silver. This
cemetery 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 a cavern of limestone rock
Abraham put Sarah, and few years
after, himself followed, and then Isaac
and Rebekah, and then Jacob and Leah.
EMPOWERED, picturesque, and memoir
able Machpelah! That God 's-acre" dedi-
Gated by Abraham has been the mother
of innumerable mortuary observances.'
The metropolis of every civilized land
has Wed 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 Infatuated. The Appian way of
Rome was bordered by sepulchral COM
memorations. For this purpose Pisa
has it's arcades of marble sculptured in
to exquisite bas-reliefs and the features
of dear faces that have vanished.
Genoa has it's terraces cut into tombs;
Constantinople covers with cypress the
habitations; and Paris has it's Pere-la-
Chaise, on whose heights rest Balzac
and David and Marshal Ney und Cuyier,
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 interment, mummifica-
ton and incarceration.
Our own country consents to be sec
ond to none 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
artificer 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 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
Westminster abbey, an Acrop-
Olis of mortuary architecture, a Pantheon
Of mighty ones assembled, e!egies in
stone, Iliads in marble, whole genera
tons in peace waiting for other genera
tons to join them. No dormitory of
sleepers in all the world has
so many mighty dead. Among preach
ers of the gospel, Bethune and Thomas
Dewitt and Bishop James and Tying and
A beel, the missionary, and Beecher and
and McClintock and Inskip
and Bangs and Chaplin and Noah Schneck
and Samuel Hanson Cox. Among musi-
,ians, the renowned Gottschalk and the
holy Thomas Hastings. Among philan-
;hropists, Peter Cooper and Isaac T.
Hopper and Lucretia Mott and Isabella
and Henry Bergh, the apostle
# mercy to the brute creation. Among
he literati, the Careys, Alice and
James X. Paulding and John
!. SAKE. Among journalists, Bennett
nd Raymond and Greeley. Among
CHEMISTS. OrmSby Mitchell, warrior as
veil as astronomer, and lovingly called
" his soldiers "Old Stars" the Diapers,
plendid men, as 1 we'll know, one of
hem my teacher, the other my class
nate. Among inventors, Elias Howe
Who, through the sewing machine d d
1ore to alleviate the tolls of woman
God than any man that ever lived, and |
'rof. Morse, who gave us magnetic tele- |
raphy; the former doing his work with |
he needle, the latter with the thunder |
olt. Among physicians and surgeons, |
oseph c. Hutchinson, and Marion Sims, |
nd DR.. Valentine Mott, with the fol-
owing epitaph which he ordered cut in
onor of the Christian religion: my |
IMPLICIT faith and hope is in merciful /
who is the resurrection and
be life. Amen and amen"
This is our American Machpelah, as
acred to US as the Machpelah in Canaan,
( which Jacob uttered that pastoral
Dem in one verse: There they buried
.braham and Sarah, his wife; there
ley buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife,
nd there buried Leah"
At this Easter service / ask and
nswer what may seem novel question,
ut it will be found, before L get
trough, a practical and useful and
question: What will resur-
ection day do for the cemeteries? First
remark, it will be their supernal
At certain seasons it is
in all lands to strew flowers
yer the mounds of the departed. 1t
lay have been suggested by the fact
lat Christ's tomb was in a garden. And
hen 1 say garden. I do not mean a
arden of these ATTITUDES The late
osts of spring and the early frosts of
autumn are so near to each other that