THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
33 
(§)U^^e^tion5 to Lot OWner^. 
If you are not already the owner of a cemetery 
lot do not put off selecting one until the grim 
messenger makes it a painful duty. If done when 
the mind is free from a burden of grief the selection 
is apt to be far more satisfactory. 
Do not purchase too small a lot, as is frequently 
done only to be regretted later on. Where it is 
agreeable, have a group of family lots adjoining 
each other and act together in the selection of such 
monuments or other objects placed upon the lots. If 
good taste prevails such an arrangement will re- 
sult in a harmonious and pleasing effect. 
Do not neglect to provide means for the perman- 
ent care of your lot. In many cemeteries a per- 
manent fund is secured by appropriating a certain 
proportion of the receipts from the sale of lots. Lot 
holders are not prohibited however from mak- 
ing additional provision for the care of the lot and 
the memorials thereon. 
Familiarize yourself with the rules governing 
your cemetery and do what you can to assist in their 
enforcement. In the larger cemeteries, people are 
sometimes disposed to object to what seems arbitra- 
ry measures for the protection of the grounds but if 
they were not necessary they would not have been 
adopted. 
It is not every visitor to “God’s Acre” who has 
the proper regard for its sanctity. 
Remember that your lot is but one of many and 
do not seek to improve it without some regard for 
the surrounding lots. Above all things do not strive 
to excel your neighbors in the size of your monu- 
ment. Ostentation should find no abiding place in 
a cemeter3^ 
The character of a cemetery need not be govern- 
ed by its size. All of the beautiful features of the 
lawn plan may be enjoyed in the small country 
burying grounds as well as in the large park-like 
city cemeteries, if the lot owners will but study how 
best to accomplish the desired result. 
Mr. Charles L. Knapp, president of Lowell 
cemetery, Lowell, Mass., is making a brave effort 
to rid his cemetery of the unsightly enclosures that 
still mar the beauty of many of the lots. He has 
addressed an appeal to all lot owners whose lots are 
enclosed in any way, from which we take the fol- 
lowing extract : 
Is not the present enclosing structure about your lot in the 
Lowell cemetery a positive detraction from the general surround- 
ings, if not a disfigurement to the lot itself? The president’s 
boldness in addressing you upon this matter — a matter, ’tis true, 
peculiarly your own affair — is only equalled by his deep interest 
in the general improvement of the cemetery as a whole . He 
detests the iron fence or the shrubbery hedge. He has, by the 
co-operation of others concerned with him in the direction of 
cemetery affairs, induced the demolition of scores of the un- 
sightly objects, and he hopes to bring about their final and com- 
plete extermination. 
“ If you will authorize the superintendent of the cemetery to 
remove the same, it will be done at once, carefully, and without 
leaving trace or scar, all, too, without expense to you. If the 
material is of iron, it will be sold and the proceeds enclosed to 
you by the treasurer of the association.” 
In the last annual report of the Town Officers 
and committees of the Town of Vernon, Ct. , the 
cemetery report is supplemented by an appeal to 
lot owners to give more attention to the care of their 
lots. The appeal is prefaced bj" an extract from a 
similar appeal issued by the directors of Oak Hill 
Cemetery, Evansville, Ind., and published in these 
columns sometime ago, and concludes as follows: 
We cannot bear to think that our memories will wither in 
the hearts of our friends, much less our kindred, when the first 
grass that grows above us shall fall beneath the frost. And it is a 
sad commentary that this urgent call has to be made. We ask 
you, shall the last resting places of our dead become a scene of 
dilapidation, or shall the work of beautifying go on with renewed 
vigor? Shall the hearts of the thousands who visit our ceme- 
teries be pained by the shadow of desolation, the sure marks of 
parsimony and unquestionable evidence of thoughtlessness and 
neglect, or shall they be delighted by proof written in tree, shrub 
and flower, and well kept walks and cleanly lots of refined, ten- 
der, lasting love of a people who cherish their own as they do 
themselves? Let us awake to our duty, and by caring for their 
silent homes, pay the tenderest of all tributes to the memory of 
departed worth. Then, when we go to muse upon their virtues, 
to draw inspiration for good from mute mounds, to recall our 
hearts from earth to Heaven, whose love and hope directs our 
vision to them, the surroundings will be in unison with our feel- 
ings, and every external evidence will soothe and calm the hearts 
of those who sorrow or meditate on the vanity of all earthly 
greatness, the reward of purity and personal worth. We will not 
then make our dead a charge upon ■a, portion of our lot owners, 
who do their duty, but upon all alike who are interested. 
God’s Acre. 
I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls 
The burial ground, God’s Acre. It is just; 
It consecrates each grave within its walls. 
And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust. 
God’s Acre ! Yes, that blessed name imparts 
Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown 
The seed that they had garne ed in their hearts. 
Their bead of life, alas ! no more their own. 
Into its furrows shall we all be cast 
In the sure faith that we shall rise again 
At the great harvest, when the Arch-Angel’s blast 
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain. 
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom. 
In the fair gardens of that second birth ; 
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume 
With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth. 
With thy rude plowshare. Death, turn up the sod, 
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow ; 
This is the field and Acre of our God, 
This is the place where human harvests grow. 
H. W. LONGFELLOW. 
