he might consecrate as a place of sacred repose for his dead for ever! Therefore Abraham communed with the children of Heth, and said that if they were kindly disposed towards him, they should entreat for him with Ephron the son of Zohar, that he should sell him the field and cave of Machpelah, "for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a burying place among you." There was the secret; he did not only wish to bury the dead out of his sight, but he wished to possess the place where they lay. When he was offered the choice among the sepulchres in the land, he bowed and declined; but when Ephron said he should have the field and the cave, "Abraham hearkened unto Ephron," and immediately weighed to him the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant." After he had paid the money, he took proper steps to secure it for himself by a well-attested title. "The field and the cave that was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city." The trees, too—a good hint!

The conduct of Abraham in all this transaction, shows that he had a great respect for the body of his dead, and that he wished, at any cost, to secure a permanent burying ground, where there was the least probability that it should ever after be desecrated and disturbed.

He might have buried his beloved Sarah in the "choice sepulchres" of the people of the land, but those were not his own; and as once in Egypt another King arose which knew not Joseph, and did evil to the children of Israel, so in the land of the Hittites, another generation would soon arise which might have no respect for the dead of Abraham. How, too, in that case could Abraham be assured that he would be permitted once to lie by her side in death? And, above all, how could he then seek her grave, as Mary did the grave of her Lord, and undisturbed, shed the silent tear of affection to her memory? No wonder that he persisted: "for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a burying-place."

It was Abraham's design, also, no doubt, to make this the place of burial for himself, and for his posterity. In this he succeeded. When he died, it is particularly mentioned that he was buried in the same place. "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre; the field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth; there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife. Gen. ix, 10. In the same place, long afterwards, they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife." There Jacob was buried still later (Gen. i, 13,) according to his own request, and there he himself had buried Leah. It is stated, by Josephus, that in his day this place was still in good repair; that the posterity of Abraham erected splendid sepulchres there, which were in his day yet to be seen. Mention is also made of this place by Eusebius and Jerome, and also by other church fathers down as late as the eighth century. Even at this day the sepulchres of the patriarchs are pointed out to the pilgrims to the holy land, by the monks on Hebron; and so well do all the circumstances around it agree with scripture notices, that travelers the

most intelligent-as, for instance Robinson-see no reason to doubt but the graves which they see are those of the patriarchs.

The field is called Machpelah, which means "double." It was beyond doubt some characteristic about the field which gave it this name. I could not think what it might be to which this "double" refers, until I met with the following, from a Spanish Jew, who visited Hebron in the twelfth century, which does not only explain this, but also beyond doubt serves to identify this place as the Machpelah of Abraham. In the valley there is a duplicate, that is as it were two little vallies. It seems that a ridge divided this field; in this ridge was no doubt the cave, and bordering the valley on each side were the "trees" that "were made sure," and which "were in all the borders round about."

Now we may ask, where are the "choice sepulchres" of the Hittites? and who would point out the place where Abraham's dead repose, if he had buried them there? The field, however, and the cave are still before Hebron, as they were some four thousand years ago; there the pious pilgrim may still stand in silent meditation, while his heart whispers,

"How many, many memories
Pass o'er my spirit now!"

We have the same feeling manifested by Jacob. When death is about to call for his soul how tender is his concern for his body! It was long the tent in which he abode, the companion of his long and tiresome pilgrimage on earth, and now, as he is called upon to lay it down at the grave, he desires to have it laid aside decently. How affecting is the language of the Bible! How beautiful is the scene before us! "And the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph." There must be something important still on the dying patriarch's spirit. What can it be? Listen!" and said unto him, if now I have found grace in my sight"-how courteous, but how earnest is this language! -"put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh." This was the mode among the Hebrews of administering an oath. Joseph then is to swear that he will deal kindly and truly with his father, in reference to this his dying request, which he is now about to make. We can fancy to ourselves Joseph standing by his father's bedside, in anxious and trembling suspense, waiting in willing and affectionate submission to hear his father's dying request. Dying Israel turns his fading eye-balls towards his beloved Joseph, the child of his greatest sorrows, but also of his greatest joys, with anxious desire. And what is his last wish? "Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt: but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place." Joseph said, "I will do as thou hast said." And Israel said, "Swear unto me: and he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head." Afterwards he made the same request of all his sons, standing together around his bed: "And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people."

Are you a painter-can you throw this scene on canvass? Are you a poet-can you describe it? Have you refined and Christian sensibilities-can you feel it? Are you like-minded with dying Israel—do you commend it?

That the manner how, and the place where, his body should be buried, was a matter of deep concern to Jacob himself is abundantly evident. The whole transaction is as earnest as it was possible to make it. The moment when he manifested this concern, is a moment when matters of light import do not concern the mind-it was the moment when Israel must die! The preface to his request shows how earnest he was: “If now I have found grace in thy sight"-that is, if you have any disposition to do me a favor. The oath which he demanded of his son shows the same: Swear unto me." The language itself, is emphatically earnest : Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt." That he was earnest is also seen from the fact that he afterwards renews his request in the presence of all his sons. "And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel, your father. And, after having blessed each, he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittites, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittitehow carefully he described it, that there may be no mistake-for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah!"

In what shocking contrast with this touching tenderness, stands the cold and cruel spirit of paganism. "Diogenes," said one, "when you die, what shall be the disposition of your body?" "Hang me up," said the Cynic," on a tree, with my staff in my hand, to scare away crows!" The respect for the dead which thus manifested itself so strongly in the "father of the faithful," continued to possess the minds of the Jews in latter ages."

When Joseph was about to die, he manifested the same abhorrence at being buried in Egypt, as his father Israel had done. "And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Gen. i, 25. After this, when Moses brought the children of Israel forth from Egypt, we are told that they brought with them the bones of Joseph, according to his request, and buried them all in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred pieces of silver; and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph." Josh. xxiv, 32. In the epistle to the Hebrews, this act of Joseph in giving commandment concerning his bones," is commended, and mentioned as an evidence of his faith. So firmly did he believe that Egypt would be in time entirely forsaken by his kindred, that he was not willing that his bones should remain there, when there was none left to whom the place where his ashes reposed would be sacred.

After the death of Saul, some valiant men of Jabesh-gilead took and buried his bones under a tree. David afterwards, when it was told him who had buried Saul, commended the act highly, and requited the humane act with special kindness towards the men who did it. Jonathan, too, it seems was buried in the same place, for we are told that "in their death they were not divided.” After this some brutish men of Jabesh

gilead committed sacrilege upon their graves, stealing their bones and carrying them away; but David interfered, secured the bones of Saul and Jonathan again, and buried them decently in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish, Saul's father. 2 Sam. xxi. 12 et seq.

This tender respect for the bodies of the dead continued still later among the Jews. To bury the dead among the poor and unfortunate, was considered a pious duty, and he who excelled in devotion in the discharge of this duty, was reverenced for his attainments in piety and excellence. For proof of this we need but refer to the first two chapters of the Book of Tobit. Tobit diligently performed this duty, in the true spirit and devotion of Scott's Old Mortality. He rose up from his table, before he had finished his meal, when he was told that one of his nation was strangled and lay unburied in the market place. He suffered the loss of all his goods, and even exposed himself to the penalty of death in purforming a duty prompted by his religious feelings, but which the laws of the land forbade as a punishment of the Jews. By night he stole out, where he knew the body of one slain had been left, carried it away and buried it decently!

The Rabbis, we are told, taught that it was not lawful to demolish tombs, or to disturb the repose of the dead, by burying another corpse, even a long time afterwards, in the same place. It was also considered by them a desecration to suffer cattle to graze in cemetaries, and thus to feed upon the grass which grew over the slumbers of the dead. Perhaps the reason of this is founded upon a sentiment thus expressed by Osborne, an old author: "He that lieth under the herse of heavenue, is convertible into sweet herbs and flowers."

Why should brutes be allowed to eat or tread under foot the green grass, and the beautiful flowers which God causes year after year to renew their freshness and beauty over the lonely dead? Rather let them grow and fade, bloom and die, and by this unceasing renovation, be a fit emblem of the final resurrection of those who sleep beneath, and a pledge of that immortal renovation in the glorious prospect of which they are now only feebly held in the arms of death. I find no fault with this law. Let no unfeeling foot, much less a brutish one, tread upon the sacred ashes of the dead!

In the New Testament, we have the same tender regard for the body manifested. How touching is the conduct of the disciples of John, after he was beheaded in the prison to satisfy the caprice of a foolish girl. And his disciples came and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus. John xiv, 13. Who does not admire their devotion? who does not commend their conduct? Their sorrow was great, and they were anxious to tell Jesus: but they buried the body first!

The tender care which was bestowed upon our Saviour's body is known and admired by all. How moving is the story of his burial! Joseph of Arimathea (being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he might take the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus (which at the first came to Jesus by night) and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new

sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus." John xix, 38. This was not all the respect which it was intended to show to our Saviour's body. He was crucified on Friday, and that evening he was laid in Joseph's new tomb, and when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. Mark xvi, 1. They were, however, not enabled to perform their intentions of love, for he had risen, and they could only behold the place where he had lain. The great stone which was rolled against the door, shows also how anxious they were to secure the body against desecration. All this shows that the body among the Jews was considered a sacred treasure, which should be laid decently away. This was not an isolated instance of such respect for the dead, for the tomb where he was laid was Joseph's own new tomb, which he had hewn out of a rock in one part of the garden for himself: thus it shows also the desire of Joseph to provide a beautiful resting place for his own body. We are told also in e same history, that this was the manner of the Jews to bury.

The early Christians as well as the Jews were distinguished for their respect for their dead. To bury them decently was considered an urgent religious duty, which they performed with peculiar promptness and devotion. This is one peculiarity about them which was so striking and prominent as to attract the attention of Julian the Apostate; this trait in them was by him admired and commended. In time of persecution, the Christians buried their dead by night, their persecutors not allowing it if known. The fact that they were prohibited from burying their dead, as a punishment, proves that their persecutors considered this their tenderest point, and believed that in no way could they afflict and pain them more. It seems from this that a desire to inter their dead was their strongest passion, to which their hearts clung longest and last. For this, in the spirit of Tobit of old and Old Mortality of modern days, they braved danger and death!

The early Christians had a great horror for the practice of burning the bodies of the dead, which was a custom at that time prevailing in the Roman Empire. It was no doubt the doctrine of the resurrection of the body which inspired this disgust at such a practice. They had, moreover, precedents in sacred history for interring or depositing it in a vault or cave in the earth, which practice was most accordant with their own feelings. Accordingly it soon became customary to employ for this purpose a piece of ground in connection with the church property; all of which was consecrated by religious solemnities as a sacred place of repose for the dead. On their graves, the anniversaries of their death was celebrated by their friends with tender devotion. This practice, and the feeling which occasioned it, are beautifully seen in the conduct of the congregation of Smyrna, in reference to the body of Polycarp their bishop, after he had suffered martyrdom; "We take up his bones (was their language) which are more precious to us than gold and precious stones, and we lay them down in a becoming place; and God will grant that we may gather together there in peace and joy, and celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, in remembrance of the departed warrior, and for the practice and exercise of those whom the battle still awaits." Who does not admire their simple devotion, and their tender affection for their