CHAPTER XVII 



CHURCHYARDS THEN AND NOW 



Nothing is more noticeable among one's recollections of 

 the changes that have passed over the country than those 

 that have affected our churchyards. 



Although, during the last fifty years, the clergy have 

 become much more active and hard-working in all matters 

 connected with the religious and social well-being of their 

 parishes, elements of unrest have crept into our beautiful 

 country churchyards ; places that, till the later middle of the 

 last century, had retained their character as ' haunts of 

 ancient peace.' 



It is just that quality of peace, and quiet beauty, that 

 all persons, of a reasonable degree of education and re- 

 finement, desire to retain about the last place of earthly 

 repose of their dear dead, and it is just this most precious 

 quality of which our churchyards are being despoiled. 



Of all places in the world, they are those in which 

 cheap things from the shop are most painfully jarring and 

 out of place ; to say nothing of many things which are by 

 no means cheap, but that are thoroughly ill-designed, and 

 totally wanting in both dignity and repose. 



In the older days, monuments in country churchyards, 

 erected to the memory of people of means and of some 

 importance of standing, were specially designed by a 

 competent architect. Often they took the form of fine 

 altar-tombs - - monuments of much dignity ; excellent in 



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