The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-03-26
FIRST OF The CEMETERIES
II was Bought By Abraham For the
Burial Of His Wife.


Cemeteries on the JUDGMENT Day.
Brooklyn. March 25.-The Easter sorvi-
ccs in the Tabernacle to-day were
attended by immense audiences. BeauJi-
fuI floral decorations almost hid the pull
pit from view, and the great organ gave
forth its most rapturous strains in honor
of the day. In the forenoon. Rev. Dr.
Talmage delivered an eloquent sermon
on. Easter in Greenwood the text
being taken from Genesis %. II, Is: And
thc field of Hebron, 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"
Here is the first cemetery ever laid out.
Macphelah was its name 1t was an arDO-
resent beauty, where the wound of death
was bandaged with foliage. Abraham.
rich man, not being able TO bride the
King of Terrors, proposes here, as far as
possible, 10 cover up the ravdgcs. He had
no doubt previously noticed this region,
and now that Sarah, his wife, had died
that remarkable person, who, al ninety
years of age, had born TO her the son
Isaac, and who now. after she had reached
one hundred and tweuty-seveu years, had
expired-AbTaham Is negotiating for a
family plot for her last slumber. Ephron
owned this real estate, and after. in mock
sympathy for Abraham, refusing 10 take
anything for IL, now sticks on big price
-four hundred shekels of silver The
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 lime stone rock A bra
ham put Sarah, and a few years after,
himself followed, and then Isaac and Re
bekah and then Jacob and Leah. EN-
powered, picturesque and memorable
Macphelah! That God s acre. dedicated
by Abraham has been the mother Of in
Vulnerable mortuary observances. The
metropolis of every civilized land has
wed with its metropolis
The most beautiful hills of Europe, out
side the great cities, are covered with OBJ
elisk and funeral vase, and arched gate
ways and columns and parterres in honor
or the inhumated. The Appian Way Of
Rome was bOrdered by seDulchral COM
memorations. For this purpose Pisa has
its arcades of marble sculptured into ex-
cellent bas reliefs, and the features of
dear faces that have vanished Genoa has
its terraces cutinto tOmbs; and CONSTANT
nopleiCovers with cypress the silent habi-
tations and Paris has its Pere Ia Chaise
Oh WuOSG utlEutS resi- DdlLdC ana DdNlQ
and Marshall Ney aud Cuvier and La
Place and Moiiere, and a mighty group of
warriors and poets and painters and mu-
sicians. In all foreign nations utmost
genius on all sides is expended in the
work of interment, mummifca ton and in
Cineration
Our own country consents to be second
to none in respect to the lifoless body
Every city and town and neigh borhood of
any intelligence or virtue has, not many
miles away, its sacred inclOsure, where
affection has engaged sculptor's chisel and
florists spake and artifcer in meals. Our
own city has shown its religion as well as
its art, in the manner which il holds the
memory Of those who have passed forever
away, by its Cypress hills, and its Ever
greens, and its Cavalry, and Holy Cross,
and Friends cemeteries. All the world
knows of our Greenwood, with now about
two hundred and seventy thousand inhab-
ltants sleeping among the hills that over
look the sea, and by lakes EN- bosomed in
an Eden of flowers, our American West
minister Abbey, an AcrOpOlis of mortuarv
architecture Pantheon of mighty ones
assembled, elegies in stone, Iliads in mar
bic, whole generations in peace waiting
for other generations to Join them No
dormitOry of breathless sleepers in all the
world has so many mighty dead
Among the preachers of the gospel.
DCbA uA4Ns dllu 1uOllldS lIGNlLL ana IDlSnOD
James and Tying, and Abeel, the mission
airy, and Beecher, and Buddington, and
McChntock and Inskip and Bangs and
Chaplin, and Noah Schneck and Samuel
Hanson Cox. Among musicians, the re
nowned Gottschalk and the holy Thomas
Hastings Among phianthropists, Peter
Cooper and Isaac T. Hopper, and Lucretia
Mott and Isabella Granam, and Henry
Bergh, the apostle of mercy to the brute
creation. Among the literati, the Carys,
Alice and PHbe; James X. Paulding and
John @. SAKE. Among Journalists Bennett
and Raymond and Greeley. Among scient
lists, Ormsby Mitchell, warrior as well as
astronomer, and lovingly called by his sol
diers "Old Stars. /" Professor Proctor and
the Diapers, splendid men, as | well
know, one of them my teacher, the other
my classmate
Among inventors, Elias Howe, who
Though The sewing machine, did more to
alleviate the tolls of wOmanhoOd than
any man that ever lived, and Professor
Morse, who gave US magnetic telegraphy:
the former doing his work with the
needle, the latter with the thunderbolt
Among physicians and surgeons. Joseph
4. hutchinson, and Marian Sims and
DR.. Valentine Mott with the following
epitaph which he ordered cut in honor of
Christian religion: My implicit faith
and hope is in a merciful Redeemer who
and Amen" This is our American
Machpelah, as sacred to US as the Mach
pelah 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 Re-
bekah, his wife, and there l buried
Leah "
AT this Easter service ask and answer
what may seem a novel question, but il
will be found, before get through. aaprac-
teal and useful and tremendous question:
What will resurrection day do for the
cemeteries! First, / remark, it will be
their supernal Identification At certain
seasons 1t 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 "a
garden. And when l say garden l do not
mean garden of these attitudes The
late frosts of spring and the early frosts
OF autumn are 50 near each other that
there are only q few months of flowers in
the field. All the flowers we sec to-day
had To be petted and coaxed and put under
shelter, or they would not have bloomed
at all. They are the children of the con
seryatories But at this season and
through most of the year, the Holy Land
IS all ablCsh with floral Opuleucc
You find al the royal family of flowers
there, some that YOU supposed indigenous