Connecticut western news., 1891-04-01

her Spring Grove, nor San Francisco than her Lone Mountain. What shall I say of those country graveyards where the vines have fallen down and the slab is aslant and the mound is caved in and the grass is the pasture ground for the sexton's cattle2 Are your father and mother of so little ac- count that you have no more respect than that for their bones? Some day gather together and straighten up the fence and lift the slab and bank up the mound and tear out the weeds and plant the shrubs. After a while you yourself will want to lie down to the last slumber. If you have no regard for the bones of your ancestors, your children will have no deference for your bones. Do you say these relics are of no importance9 You will see of how much importance they are when the archangel takes out his trumpet Turn all your graveyards into gardens Standing in this place where the Lord lay am also impressed with the dig nifty of unpretending obsequies. Joseph | that day was mourner, sexton, livery man-had the entire charge of all the occasion. Four people only at the | burial of the King of the Universe. Let this be consolatory to those who, through small means or lack of large acquaintance, have but little demon stration of grief at the grave of their l dead. It is not necessary. Long line 1 of glittering equipages, two rows of sill yer handles, casket of costly wood, pallbearers scarlet and gloved are not necessary. Christ looks out from heaven at burial where there are six in attendance, and remembers there are 1 two more than he had at his obsequies.
 Not recognizing this idea, how many small properties are scattered in the funeral rites, and widowhood and or phanage go out to the cold charity of the world. The departed left enough property to have kept the family to- l gether until they could take care of themselves, but it is all absorbed in the | funeral rites. That went for crape which ought to have gone for bread. 1 A man of small means can hardly af ford to die in one of our great cities. Funeral pageantry is not necessary. No one was ever more lovingly and tenderly put into the grave than Christ, but there were only four in the process sion.
 l THE DEAD SHALL RISE AGAIN.
 Again, standing in this place where the Lord lay, am impressed with the fact that you cannot keep the dead down. The seal of Sanhedrim, regi- ment of soldiers from the tower of Antonio to stand guard, floor of rock, roof of rock, wall of rock, niche of rock, cannot keep Christ in the crypt Come out and come up he must. Came out and came up he did. Prefigura- ton. The first fruits of them that sleep Just as certainly as you and go down into the grave, just so cer- tainly we will come up again. Though you pile up on the top of us all the powders of the mountains, you cannot keep us down. Though we be buried under the coral of the deepest cavern of the Atlantic ocean, we will rise to the surface. Ah my friends, death and the grave are not what they used to be to us, for now, walking around the spot where the Lord lay, we find vines and flowers covering up the toMb, and that which we called a place of skulls has become beautiful garden. Yea, now there are four gar dens instead of one-Garden of Eden, Garden of the Worlds Sepulcher, Gar den of Earth's Regeneration, Garden of Heaven.
 Various scriptural accounts say that the work of grave breaking will begin with the blast of trumpets and shout ings; whence I take it that the first intimation of the day will be sound from heaven such as has never before been heard. It may not be so very loud, but it will be penetrating There are mausoleums so deep that undis- turbed silence has slept there ever since the day when the sleepers were left in them. The great noise shall strike through them. Among the corals of the sea, miles deep, where the ship wrecked rest, the sound will strike. No one will mistake it for thunder or the blast of earthly minstrelsy. There will be heard the voice of the uncounted millions of the dead, who come rushing out of the gates of eternity, flying toward the tomb, crying: Make way Oh, grave, give us back our body! We gave it to you in corruption; surrender it now in interruption. Thousands of spirits arising from the field of Sedan, and from among the rocks of Gettysburg, and from among the passes of South Mountain. A hundred thou sand are crowding Greenwood. On this grave three spirits meet, for there were three bodies in that tomb; over that family vault twenty spirits hover, for there were twenty bodies.
 From New York to Liverpool at every few miles on the sea route, a group of hundreds of spirits coming down to the water to meet their bodies. See that multitude !-that is where the Central America sank. And wonder multitude!-that is where the Pacific went down. Found at last! That is where the City of Boston sank. And wonder the President went down. A solitary spirit alights on wonder prairie that is where traveller perished in the snow The whole air is full ot spirits-spirits flying north spirits fly ing south, spirits flying east, spirits fly ing west. Crash! goes Westminster Abbey, as all it's dead kings and orators and poets get up.
 Strange commingling of fspirits search