The Penn's Grove record., 1894-03-30
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Easter in Greenwood"

ttt HtfS ttut t1kTg w tNt .ftftut Htut hCcft th ~
the borders round about, toere made sure INIT
abraham. "-Genesis xiii, II, 10.
Here is the first cemetery ever laid out
Machpelah was its name. 1t was IN arbo.
resent beauty, where the wound of dealt
was bandaged with foliage. Abraham. Q
rich man, not being able to bride the king o.
%terrors, proposes here, as far as possible, tc
cover up the ravages. He had no doubt
previously noticed this region, n now that
Sarah, his wife, had died-that remarkable
person who, at ninety years of age, had born
to her the son Isaac, and who now, after she
had reached 1877 years. had expired-Abra-
ham is negotiating for a family plot for her
last slumber.
Ephron owned this real estate, and after,
in mock sympathy for Abraham, refusing to
take anything for 1t, now sticks on a big
price-400 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 nc deeds and no halls of record
in those early times. Then in a cavern Of
limestone rock Abraham put Sarah. and a
few years after himself followed, and then
Isaac and Rebekab, and then Jacob and
Leah. E~mbowered, picturesque and men,
orable Machpelah! That Goods acre" dedi-
Gated by Abraham has been the mother Of
innumerable mortuary observances. The
metropolis of every civilized land has WED
with its metropolis.
The most beautiful hills of Europe outside
the great cities are covered with obelisk and
funeral vase and arched gateways and col
and parterres in honor OF the inhum-
ated. The Appian way OF Rome was bor-
dered by sepulchral commemorations. For
this purpose Pisa has its arcades of marble
sculptured into excellent bas-reliefs the
features OF dear faces that have vanished.
Genoa has its terraces cut into tombs. and
~Constantinople covers with cyprus the silent
habitations, and Paris has its Pere la Chaise,
on whose heights rest Balzac and David and
Marshal Ney and Cuvier and La Place and
Moliere and a 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, mummi-
flcation and Incarceration.
Our " country consents to be second to
none in respect to the fifeless body. Every
city and town and neighborhood OF an intel
Hgence or virtue has not many miles away
its sacred Enclosure. where affection has en-
gagged sculptor's chisel and florists spade
n a~rtiflcer In metals. Our own city has
shown its religion as we'll as its art in the
manner which 1t holds the memory of those
who have passed forever away by its Cypress
Hills. and its Eyergreens, and its Calvary
and Holy Cross and Friends cemeteries.
All the world knows of our Greenwood,
with now about go, 900 inhabitants sleeping
among the hills that overlook the sea, and
by lakes embosomed in an Eden OF flowers,
our American Westminster abbey, IN Aero.
polls of mortuary architecture, at Pantheon
OF mighty ones assembled, elegies in stone,
Iliads in marble, 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, Be-
thune and Thomas De Witt and Bishop james
,oA H,,. - Ah-aI 49, -
Beecher mi Buddington, and McClintock
n Inskip, and Bangs and Chaplin, and
Noah Schenck n Samuel Hanson Cox,
Among musicians, the renowned Gottsehalk
and the holy Thomas Hastings. Among
philanthropists, Peter Cooper and Isaac T.
Hopper, and Lucretia Mott and Isabella
Graham, and Henry Bergh, the apostle OF
mercy to the brute creation. Among the
litterati. the Carys-Alice and Phoebe
James K. Paulding and John G.. SAKE.
Among journalists, Bennett and Raymond
and Greeley. Among scientists, Ormsby.
Mitchell, warrior as well as astronomer and
lovingly called by his soldiers sold Stars =
Professor Proctor and the Diapers -
splendid men, as 1 well know, one OF them
my teacher, the other my classmate.
Among inventors Elias Howe, who through
the sewing machine did more to alleviate
the tolls OF w~omanhood than any man that
ever lived, AMI Professor Morse, who gave
us magnetic telegraphy, the former doing
his work with the needle, the latter with the
thunderbolt. Among physicians and sur
geons Joseph G. Hutchinson and Marion
Sims n DIR. Valentine Mott, with the fol-
epitaph, which he ordered cut In
honor Of Christian religion "My implicit
faith and hope is in a merciful Rsdeemsr,
who is the resurrection and the life. Amen
and Amen" This is our American Machpe-
lab, as sacred to us as the Machpelah in
Canaan, OF which Jacob utteredthat pastoral
poem in one versa: ''There they buried
Abraham and Sarah, his wife there they
buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife and
there I buried Leah"
AT this Easter service I ask and answer
what may seem a novel question, but it will
be found, before l get through, a practical
and useful and tremendous question, What
will resurrection day do for the cemeteries?
First, / remark, 1t will be their supernal
Identification. At certain seasons 1t is Gus
tomary in all lands to strew flowers over the
Of the departed. 1t may have been
suggested by the fact that Christ's tomb was
in q garden. And when I say garden I do
not mean a garden of these ATTITUDES. The
late frosts of spring and the early frosts Of
are so near each other that there
are only a few months of flowers inthe field.
the flowers We see to-day had to DO
petted and coaxed and put under shelter, or
would not have bloomed at all. They
are the children ofthe Conservatives. But
at this season and through the most OF the
year the Holy Land is all ablush with floral
opulence.
You find all the royal family of flowers
there, some that you suppose indigenous to
far north and others Indigenous TO the
far south-the daisy and hyaclnth, crocus
and anemone, tulip and water lily, geranium
and ranunculus, ~mignonette AMI sweet mar
joram. In the college at Beirut you may see
Posts collection OF about 1900 kinds OF
Holy Land flowers, while among trees are
the oaks OF frozen chimes, and the tamarlsk
Of the tropics, walnut and willow, ivy and
hawthorn, ash and elder, pine and sycamore.
such floral and botanical beauties are the
wild growths of the field, think Of what a
must be in Palestine! And in such a
garden Jesus Christ slept after, on the
soldiers spears, His last drop of blood had
that all our cemeteries should be floralized
and tree shaded. In June Greenwood is
Brooklyn's garden.
@Well, them" you say, show can you
make u that the resurrection day will
beautify the cemeteriesP VIII 1t not leave
them a plowed up ground? On that day
there will be an earthquake, and will not
this split the polished Aberdeen granite as
well as the plain slab that can afford but two
oo oJ 0~ SAoAg
Well, I will tell you how resurrection day
will beautify all the cemeteries. 1t will be
by bringing up the faces that were to US
once, and In our memories are TO US now.
more beautiful than any Gala lily, and the
forms that are to us more graceful than any
by the waters. Can you think OF
anything more beautiful than the Ieappear.
ance of those from whom we nave been
I do not care which way the tree
falls in the blast of the judgment hurricane,
II the plowshare. that day shall turn under
the last rose leaf int the last china aster, II
out OF the broken sod shall come the bodies
Of our loved ones not damaged, but IRA
dated.
The idea Of the resurrection gets easier to
understand as l hear the photograph unroll
voice that talked into 1t a year ago, just
before our friends deeease. You touch the
ever, and then come forth the very tones,
he very sons OF the person that breathed
INTO II once, but is now departed. II n MN
an do that, cannot Almighty God, without
lalf trying, return the voice of your depart
ID? And II he can return the voice, why
lot the lips, and the tongue, and the throat
hat fashioned the voice2 And II the lips.
md the tongue, and tho throat. why not the
rain that suggested the words? And II the
rain, why not the nerves, Of which the brain
the headquarters2 And II he can return