of Joseph to "deal kindly and truly" with him, and says, “Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt;" and when Joseph had answered, “I will do as thou hast said," still Jacob demanded a more solemn pledge, and he said, "Swear unto me. And he sware unto him."(4) Many a time, beyond doubt, had Jacob's thoughts wandered to that peaceful burial-place whilst he sojourned in Egypt; often had his fancy pictured that quiet cave, the field surrounded and covered with trees, where all day long their shadows waved to and fro, with a dreamy and sleepy motion, noiseless, as if akin to death; and that he dreaded lest the "building masons" of Egypt should pile a pyramid above his bones in that unbelieving land of idol-worshippers. Jacob was buried in the field of Machpelah; and although the twilight of ages has dropped down, and deepened over that ancient cemetery, yet such a spirit of truthfulness breathes over the Holy Pages, that we can almost fancy ourselves the last lingerers in that solemn field, watching the departure of the "great company of chariots and horsemen," (5) as they slowly wind away amongst the trees after the burial of Jacob, until all are lost in Egyptian darkness. We know no pastoral poetry equal to what is scattered over the earlier chapters of the Bible; nothing that breathes such a primitive spirit of piety and peace. No sound of the city disturbs the quietude of those plains; the beautiful daughters of the patriarchs lead forth their flocks and herds to the wells of water; rich pasture lands, bordered with trees, stretch for miles away; green valleys everywhere open, filled with cattle quietly grazing; here and there a tent is visible in the landscape; Isaac walks forth to muse (4) Genesis, chap. xlvii., verses 29 and 30. (5) Genesis, chap. 1., verse 9. in the fields at eventide, while the figures of angels are ever crossing the scene, and showing how nearly in those golden days earth was allied to heaven. Even their funeral ceremonies are poetical. Poor old Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, was buried by Jacob under an oak, and it was called the "Oak of Weeping;" so great was their lamentation for her who had accompanied his mother from the home of her childhood, and shared all their privations in a strange land; and Jacob seems almost broken-hearted while telling Joseph how he buried Rachel by the road-side, When yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath.”(6) 66 Through what a land of poetry and peril was the dead body of Joseph brought out of Egypt! What painter is there bold enough to grapple with such a subject? Amid all the plagues of Egypt there stood the coffin ready to be borne away, in the deep darkness which overshadowed the land it was not forgotten; the pillar of fire flashed upon it by night, and by day it moved slowly behind the pillar of cloud; through the Red Sea was it carried, between that high and terrible wall of waters, which, when it had passed, rolled back, and became the grave of the haughty Egyptians. Through storm and battle, and the perils of the wilderness, and the thunder which shook Mount Sinai was the body of that dead man borne. When Moses held up his wearied arm and conquered Amalek, it was still there. On the waves of war it was washed to the Promised Land; it followed the Ark of God when Jordan was divided, and was at last buried in the field of Shechem, in the ground which Jacob had long before purchased of the sons of Hamor." In the whole annals of time there is no funeral procession on (6) Genesis, chap. xlviii., verse 7. record that comes near in sublimity and grandeur to his, who, when young, was sold as a slave to the Egyptians. That dead march through the God-dried ocean and over the desert, led by Moses (whose grave the angels dug), the man who met his Maker face to face, and spoke to him as a man does to his friend, was a mourner at that great funeral, which eclipses all romance: the eye of imagination closes before its awful splendour. The dead and the living pass away amid the roar of the ocean, the thunder of the Mount, and the clashing of battle upon battle; and while we read we feel as if in the presence of Him, "who doeth great things which we cannot comprehend." In the beginning of Genesis, and from the utterance of the Almighty himself, we find the first man that was created, doomed to return to the dust from whence he came yet whether by burial in the earth, or otherwise, is not recorded; but, from the manner of interment followed by Abraham, there is but little doubt that the same custom was instituted by the elder patriarchs before the Deluge; and that Noah, who must have been well acquainted with the earlier modes of burial, imparted the same knowledge to his children. That the custom of burning the dead is also of ancient date we have authority as remote as that of the Theban war; whilst the glowing descriptions of the funeral pyres in Homer, flash as brightly through the long night of ages, as if we ourselves were the spectators, and saw Achilles, with his "man-killing hands," stretched out on the blazing pile. Even in our own country we have strong grounds for supposing that the ancient Britons burnt their dead, from the number of rude urns which have at various periods been discovered, without any remains of the ustrinal vessels, incense-pots, coins, or lachrymatories ac companying them, as was the custom amongst the Romans. But whether such urns are anterior to the invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar, and such was the form of burial amongst the ancient Druids—or, whether they merely contained the remains of some small and conquered tribe, who were half-Romanised through living near the neighbourhood of the encamped invaders, and, amongst other things, copied the Roman mode of interment, are matters which we must leave to sleep in their ancient obscurity. One thing, however, is not improbable, as it was a custom of remote antiquity to burn the dead, many a learned geologist may yet wander in error, and as he fails to discover that which was consumed by fire, wrongfully, perhaps, conclude that it had no existence at the imagined period he fixes upon for his "undated remains." The embalming of the dead, as practised by the Egyptians, is known to all who have seen a mummy, or glanced at the history of that ancient and mysterious people. Sublime and impressive they may look in their own stupendous and solemn tombs; but, to our eye, they appear nipped up and miserable in their ornamented wrappings and gilded cases; and should we be compelled to have our remains handed down through three thousand years, we would prefer the noble urn and the funeral pyre a thousandfold, and choose a moveable monument of marble and ashes. Whatever were the customs of the ancients, their burials in imperishable tombs, in costly urns of gold or silver, beneath the domes of towering temples, by the road side (solemn mementos of the traveller), or in lonely deserts and forsaken places, none were ever better adapted to the circumstances of the present day, considering the crowded state of our cities, and the increased value of the lands That such recep adjacent, than are our rural cemeteries. tacles for the dead existed in past ages, we have ample proof in history, beside the existing ruins of many in the present day, which clearly show that the "silent cities of the dead" were remote from those of the living. That rural cemeteries, like railroads, are at present looked upon with the calculating eye of cent. per cent., instead of the noble and enlarged view which looks forward to the benefit of mankind only, the enormous sums demanded for the ground too clearly demonstrates. It would form a most startling estimate, if the price for which a single acre of land is sold in one of our large metropolitan cemeteries, was put down in plain figures. But this is one of the evils that time will remedy; for it is not in a country like ours, clamorous for free trade with all the living world, that any power can long monopolise these green freeholds of the dead. Men will be found ready to give their lands for burial-places at a fair remunerating price, such as the very poor will be willing to pay, for it is not the poor who can at present bury their dead in the cemeteries. Even the ground in city churchyards comes high, when we consider the " quick returns," and the many "entries" arising from one grave, so often changing its tenants in the course of a few years. As regards the object of distance (a great consideration to the poor), let the cemeteries once open their graves at such prices as they can afford to pay, and conveyances will soon spring up, cheap enough and respectable enough, for such solemn occasions. We belong not to those who think it a waste of wealth to pay honour to the dead, nor would we wish to see the funeral processions of the rich shorn of a plume-they are in keeping with their lives— |