The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1894-03-30
THE RESURRECTION.
REV. DR. rALMAGE breaches UPON
EASTER IN GREENWOOD.n

mo GREAT IIDernacie InrOnged-Ihe Iui-
pit Almost Hidden With Flowors-The
Usual Beautiful and Unique Sermon.
Brooklyn's Famed Cemetery.
BROOKLYN, March 25.-The Easter
services in the Tabernacle today were
attended by immense audiences. Beau
tiful floral decorations almost hid the
pulpit 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 SER
mon on easter In Greenwood" the text
being taken from Genesis xiii, II, 1S,
"And the field of Hebron, which was in
Machpelah, which was before Mamre,
the field, and the cave which was there.
n, 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.
Machpelah was its name. TWAS an arbo-
resent beauty, where the wound of
death was bandaged with foliage. Abra-
ham, rich man, not being able to bride
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 person who, at 80
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 family plot for
her last slumber.
Ephron owned this real estate, and
after, in mock sympathy for Abraham,
refusing to take anything for it, now
sticks on big price-400 shekels of sill
yer. The cemetery lot is paid for, and
the transfer made in the presence of wit
nesses in public place, for there were
no deeds and no halls Of record in those
early times. Then in cavern of lime
stone 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 Gods
acre" dedicated by Abraham has been
the mother of innumerable mortuary OBJ
servances. The metropolis of every civil
lized land has WED with it's metropolis.
BEAUTIFUL CITIES OF THE DEAD.
The most beautiful hills of Europe out
side the great cities are covered with
obelisk and funeral vase and arched
gateways and columns and parterres in
honor of the Illuminated. The Appian
way of Rome was bordered 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 Con-
stantinople covers with cyprus the silent
habitations, and Paris has its Pere la
Chaise, on whose heights rest Balzac
and David and Marshal Ney and Gu
vier 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 ex-
pended in the work of interment, num-
MITIGATION and incarceration.
Our own country consents to be second
to none in respect to the lifeless body.
Every city and town and neighborhood
of any intelligence or virtue has not many
miles away its sacred Enclosure, where
affection has engaged sculptor's chisel
and florists spade and artiicer in metals.
Our own city has shown its religion as
well as its art in the manner which it
holds the memory of those who have
passed forever away by its Cypress Hills,
and its Evergreens, and its Calvary and
Holy Cross and Friends cemeteries
All the world knows of our Green-
wood, with now about 100000 inhabit-
ants sleeping among the hills that over
look the sea, and by lakes embosomed in
! an Eden of flowers, our American West
minister abbey, an Acropolis of mortuary
architecture, Pantheon of mighty ones
assembled, elegies in stone, Iliads in mar
BILE, 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.
THE MIGHTY sLEEPERs.
Among the preachers of the gospel,
Bethune and Thomas Dewitt and Bish.
op James and Tying and Abel, the mis-
sionary, and Beecher and Buddington
and McClintock and Inskip, and Bangs
and Chaplin. and Noah Schenck and Sam
uel Hanson Cox. Among musicians, the
renowned Gottschalk and the holy Thorn
as 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 litterati, the
Carys-Alice and Phebe-James K
Raulding and John G. SAKE. Among
journalists, Bennett and Raymond ant
Greeley. Among scientists, Ornsby
Mitchell, warrior as we'll as astronomer
and lovingly called by his soldiers "Olt
Stars" Professor Proctor and the ORA
pers-splendid men, as I we'll know, on,
of them my teacher, the other my class
mate.
Among inventors Elias Howe, wht
through the sewing machine did more tt
alleviate the tolls of womanhood thai
any man that ever lived, and Professo
Morse, who gave us magnetic telegraphy
the former doing his work with tn
needle, the latter with the thunderbolt
Among physicians and surgeons JOSEPH
G. Hutchinson and Marion Sims and DR.
Valentine Mott, with the following cpl
taph, which he ordered cut in honor o
Christian religion: my implicit faitl
and hope is in merciful Redeemer
!, who is the resurrection and the life
Amen and Amen" This is our Ameri
Can Machpelah. as sacred to us as tn
Machpelah in Canaan, of which Jaco'
uttered that pastoral poem in one verse
There they buried Abraham and Sa
rah. his wife; there they buried Isaa
and Rebekah, his wife, and there burie
Leah"
TIE FAMILY OF FLOWERS.
At this Easter service l ask and an
swer what may seem novel question
but it will be found, before / &c
through. q practical and useful and trt
wendous question, What will resurret
ton day do for the cemeteries? First,