THE PROPER EXPRESSION OP A RURAL CEMETERY. 



ta{?e-grouncl of a Christian faitli, when she declares that she woultl count it plorious 

 to (lie in the act of performin<; burial rites for her outlawed brother, and that she 

 will rescue his body from dislionor in spite of a tyrant's edict anil armed opposi- 

 tion. We shudder at the desecration of crowded cemeteries in our larp^e cities 

 Avhen ruthless mammon breaks down moss-covered headstones, invades the sanc- 

 tity of family vaults, shovels out the relics of whole jrenerations, and lays open 

 streets, or sells building-lots, where the hush of the sepulchre ought to have been 

 perpetual. 



It is pleasant to know that in so many of our States the desire for permanent 

 burial places is respected by law. In the State of New York the property of 

 cemetery associations is exempt from all jniblic taxes afid assessments. It is not 

 liable to be sold on execution, or for the payment of debts due from individual 

 proprietors. After the title of a plat has been transferred to an individual, and 

 an interment made therein, the plat becomes his inalienable property, descending 

 to his heirs and their heirs forever, or so long as they choose to retain it. 



In this age of sudden changes, revolutions, and runnings to and fro, when 

 household altars are set up to-day and deserted to-morrow, when a church is con- 

 secrated this year for sacred worship, and next year sold for a theatre or a barn ; 

 when even religious principles are pulled up every now and then, "as children 

 pull up the shrubs they have ])lanted, to see if they have taken root," it is pleasant 

 to be permitted to organize cemeteries that carry the elements of permanency. 



Nature consents to co-operate with us in doing deathless honor to the dead. 

 In one of his prophetic odes, the poet Horace boasts that he has wrought out for 

 himself by his verse-craft a monument more lasting than brass — 



Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens 

 Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis 

 Annorum series, et fuga temporum. 



It were not extravagant, and would savor less of vanity, for those who secure 

 plats in a rural cemetery to indulge in anticipations equally confident, though 

 with a chastening of melancholy, and to foresee in the trees which they there 

 plant a memorial of respect for the dead, an ex])ression of elevated character, and 

 a pledge of their grateful remembrance in the remote future, which the driving 

 storm shall rather feed than waste, which the fierce winter's rocking winds shall 

 nurse into more stalwart grandeur, which shall gain something of beauty and 

 venerable strength from each revolving year. Non omnes moriemur. Even in 

 our bodies we shall not utterly perish, so long as 



" The oak 

 Shall send abroad his roots and pierce our mould," 



so long as 



" The yew-tree graspeth at the stones 

 That name the underlying dead." 



II. It is also befitting that a permanent and ornate cemetery should aim at 

 fulness and accuracy in its historical expression. Every burial-place is a reposi- 

 tory of unorganized history. An Indian grave-mound that carries neither epitaph, 

 name, or date, will furnish crude materials for the historian's use. Unearth the 

 martial and domestic implements buried with the Indian warrior, and they will 

 give glimpses of information, more or less reliable, about his habits, wealth, social 

 standing, and the superstitions of his tribe. From the sepulchral monuments of 

 the ancients we infer many ideas, not elsewhere preserved, respecting their domestic 

 usages, civil institutions, and their progress in assthetic arts. A large share of 

 what we know about the Pharaohs is embalmed with them in the dark cerements 



:^^ 



