The Bossier banner., 1894-05-10
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
What Will Resurrection Day Do
For the Cemeteries
A Novel Question Asked and Answered
The Supernal Beautifcation of
she Pieces of the Dead
The Resurrection.

Rev I. Dewitt Talmage took for the
subject of his Easter sermon in the
Brooklyn ia tabernacle: Easter in Green
wood basing it on the text:
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 roundabout, were made sure unto Abra-
ham.-Genesis xiii, II, IS.
Here is the first cemetery ever laid
out. Machpelah was its name. 1t was
an arborescent beauty, where the
wound of death was bandaged
with foliage. Abraham, rich
man, not being able to bribe the
king of terrors, proposes here, as far
as possible, to cover up the ravages.
He had no doubt previously noticed
this region, and now that Sarah, his
wife, had died-that remarkable per-
son, who, at ninety years of age, had
born to her the son Isaac, and who
now, after she had reached one hun
dred and twenty-seven years, had ex-
pired-Abraham is negotiating for
family plot for her last slumber Eph-
ron owned this real estate, and
after, in mock sympathy for Abraham,
refusing to take anything for it, now
sticks on a big price-four hundred
sheckels of silver. The cemetery lot
is paid for, and the transfer made, in
the presence of witne sses 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. Embowered, picturesque and
memorable Machpelah! That Goods
acre" dedicated by Abraham has been
the mother of innumerable mortury
observat1ces. The metropolis of every
civilized land has We'd with its metrop-
oils.
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 inhumated.
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 and the features of dear faces
that have vanished. Genoa has its
terraces cut into tombs, and Constan-
tinople covers with cypress the silent
,habitations, and Paris has it's Pere la
Chaise, on whose heights rest Balzac,
and David. and Marshal Ney, and Gu
vier, and La Place, and Moliere, and
mighty group of warriors, and paint
ers, and musicians. In all foreign ma
tions utmost genius on all sides is ex-
pended in the work of interment,
mummifcation and incineration.
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
inclosure, where affection has engaged
sculptor's chisel and florists spade and
artificer in metals. Our own city has
shown its religion as well as it's art, in
the manner in which it holds the mem
ory of those who have passed forever
away, by its Cypress Hills, and it's
Evergreens, and its Calvary, and Holy
Cross Gem eteries. All the world knows
of our Greenwood, with now about
two hundred and seventy-five thousand
inhabitants sleeping among the hills
that overlook the sea, and by lakes,
embosomed in an Eden of flowers, our
American Westminster Abbey, an
Acropolis of mortuary architecture,
Pantheon of mighty ones ascended,
elegies in stone, Iliads in marble,
whole generations in peace waiting for
other generations to join them. No
dormitory or breathless sleepers in all
the world has SO many mighty dead.
Among the preachers of the Gospel,
Bethune and Thomas Dewitt, and
Bishop James and Tying, and Abeel,
the missionary, and Beecher and Bud
dington, and McClintock and Inskip
and Bangs and Chaplin. and Noah
Schenck and Samuel Hudson Cox.
Among musicians, the renowned
Gottschalk and the holy Hastings
Among philanthropists, Peter Cooper
and Isaac 7. Hopper, and Lucretia
Mott and Isabella Graham, and Henry
Bergh, the apostle of mercy to the
brute creation. Among the literati,
the Carys, Alice and Phe be; James K.
Paulding and John G. Sake Among
journalists, Bennett and Raymond and
Greeley. Among scientists, ormsby
Mitchell, warrior as well as astrono-
mer, and lovingly called by his sol
diers ''Old Stars" Prof. Proctor and
the Drapers, splendid men, as I well
know, one of them my teacher, the
other my clas s-nate.
Among inventors, Elias Howe, who
through the sewing machine, did more
to alleviate the tolls of womanhood
than any man that,,ever lived, and Prof
Morse, who gave us magnetic telegra-
pny; the former doing his work with
the needle, the latter with the thunder
bolt Among physicians and surgeons
Joseph C. Hutchinson and Marion
Sims and DIR. Valentine Mott, with the
following epitaph which he ordered
cut in honor Of Christian religion: my
implicit faith and hope is in mercifu
Redeemer, who is the resurrection anG
the life. Amen and amen This il
oas American Maclpelah. as saerei