set aside. And these are Edwards' pillars. His edifice crumbles with them. They are to him what axioms are to the geometer, the connecting links of all his arguments. He labors, with wonderful industry and skill, to establish them, and interweaves them, with equal adroitness, into the whole texture of his consummate logic. Take them away, and the cunning fabric falls to pieces.

The science of psychology is not what it was in the time of Edwards. Well said President Day, however ironically, that if Edwards "were now living, he would meet with those who could teach him, that he was far from having exhausted the science of mind." Undoubtedly he would. Does President Day seriously think that he had exhausted it? He did not, indeed, "anticipate the higher metaphysics of our times;" but the metaphysics are none the worse for that. Man's spiritual being is somewhat more thought of now than formerly. It is easy enough to rail at all rational psychology as transcendentalism; of which said transcendentalism many good men have no other notion than that it is something terribly wicked, because certain crazy people in the country christen their ravings by the name. But the time is coming, and we think with rapidity, when these things will be better understood, in spite of the multitude of thinkers and no-thinkers who would have everything proceed after the old mumpsimus. And in the light of a more just psychology, we trust men will learn, that from the "so called universal law of nature, governed by necessity, it is not possible to derive its very antithesis-a law of freedom."

November 1, 1843.

ART. IV.—Rural Cemeteries. North American Review, vol. liii, Article iv.

"BUT whence have they," (the voluptuous,) inquires the pious Saint Pierre, "derived this sentiment of funereal melancholy, in the very midst of pleasure? Must it not have been from the persuasion that something still subsists after we are gone? Did a tomb suggest to their imagination only the idea of what it is designed to contain, that is, a corpse merely, the sight of it would shock rather than please them. How afraid are most of them at the Examination of Edwards, p. 94.

VOL. IV.-6

thought of death! To this physical idea, then, some moral sentiment must undoubtedly be united. The voluptuous melancholy resulting from it arises, like every other attractive sensation, from the harmony of the two opposite principles; from the sentiment of our fleeting existence, and that of our immortality; which unite on beholding the last habitation of mankind. A tomb is a monument erected on the confines of the two worlds."

What the author of the "Studies of Nature" here says of the "voluptuous," may with equal propriety be said of the whole human race. Whether the answer given by him to the question raised by himself is precisely correct or not, there would probably be some difference of opinion; but all will admit it contains much truth. Though, as we believe, the state of the departed spirit is in no way affected, either for good or evil, by the situation in which the "clay tenement" it has recently occupied may remain, we apprehend much of the interest which we feel in attending upon the funeral obsequies of the departed, and providing suitable monuments to their memories, arises from the conviction that the vital principle is not extinct, but only absent; that the separation, though long protracted, is not to be eternal.

Indeed, regard for the proper disposition of the remains of those who have died may be considered as a characteristic of man, which has manifested itself among all nations in every age of the world. "To man alone, of all animals," says Pliny, "is given ambition, avarice, strong desire of living, superstition, the care of sepulture, and regard for the future after death." By superstition Pliny no doubt meant all regard for religious observances; and with this he considers "care of sepulture" as closely associated; both, it would seem, having their origin in, or being intimately related to, that "longing for immortality" which writers on this subject consider natural to the human heart. Indeed, we know the opinion prevailed among the ancients that the soul could not be admitted into the Elysian shades until the body had received the rites of sepulture; or, if these were denied, it must wander desolate and alone one hundred years. Hence, to die under such circumstances as to preclude the possibility of a proper interment, was considered one of the greatest calamities; and death by shipwreck, as the body would be liable to be entirely lost in the deep, was particularly

* Studies of Nature, by James Henry Bernardine de Saint Pierre, translated from the French, by Henry Hunter, D. D., vol. ii, page 68.

† Uni [homini] animantium luctus est datus.

uni ambitio, uni avaritia, uni immensa vivendi cupido, uni superstitio, uni sepulturae cura, atque etiam post se de futuro.-Nat. Hist., lib. vii, 1.

dreaded. Thus Ovid, though he considers death would be to him a blessing, prays to be saved from shipwreck.

Demite naufragium, mors mihi munus erit.

"Death would my soul from anxious troubles ease,

But that I fear to perish by the seas."

By a law of Athens, a person finding a dead body was compelled to give it a decent interment. If he was in haste, it would suffice to throw soft earth or sand upon it three times.

Persons killed by lightning, suicides, and enemies of the state, were not entitled to the rites of sepulture.

In Egypt, the city nearest which a dead body was found, was obliged to embalm it and give it the ordinary funeral rites. Indeed, in no other country was ever such attention paid to the lifeless remains of the departed, in embalming them, and providing for them proper repositories, as in Egypt. For this purpose were those immense structures, the pyramids, erected, which remain to this day as wonderful monuments of the enterprise and mechanical skill of an unknown people; for this were the catacombs, those labyrinthine, subterranean cities, excavated.

The Scriptures everywhere recognize the obligation of the living to perform the proper funeral rites for the dead. In Gen. xv, 15, it is predicted of Abraham that he shall go to his fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age; and on the death of Sarah, his wife, he purchased of Ephron a "field in Machpelah, which was before Mamre," (Gen. xxiii, 17,) for a burial place, where he was afterward buried, (Gen. xxv, 9,) and also Isaac, and Jacob, and others of their families. Gen. xlix, 2-32; 1, 13. Joseph died in Egypt, where his body was embalmed; (Gen. 1, 25;) and when his descendants departed from the country they took his bones with them, as he had before directed, and buried them in Shechem, in a field which his father had purchased of the children of Hamor. Gen. xxiii, 19, 20; Josh. xxiv, 32. Moses was buried in a field in the plain of Moab, but the precise spot never was known; (Deut. xxiv, 6;) and Eleazar, the son and successor of Aaron, on Mount Ephraim. Josh. xxiv, 33. Near the same place was Joshua also buried. Josh. xxiv, 30. David, and Solomon, and most of the kings of Judah, were buried in the sepulchres of the kings at Jerusalem, but Manasseh and Amon, for some reason, in the garden of Uzza.

This is denied by Faber in his work on the Mysteries of the Cabiri, vol. ii, p. 385; by Dr. Bryant, and others: but if there ever was ground for doubt on the subject, recent discoveries have entirely removed it.

To be deprived of the rites of sepulture, the Jews, as well as the Greeks and Romans alluded to above, considered a calamity, as is evident from the fact that this was not unfrequently threatened them as a punishment for their sins. Jer. vii, 1, 2; Ezek. vi, 5: see, also, Eccles. vi, 3. The body of our Saviour was deposited in a tomb "hewn from a rock," "wherein was never man laid ;" and Lazarus was buried in a cave.

But apart from any religious or superstitious notions that may have prevailed in ancient or modern times, the appropriate interment of the dead must always, on many accounts, be a subject of deep interest. In the language of the writer, whose article we have made the basis of these remarks, "it is forced upon us by considerations which are absolutely imperative. The strong law of necessity leaves us little choice in the matter. The great destroyer is ever busy. A generation of men passes away in less than half the threescore years and ten' allotted to man. Thrice in a century all the generations of the dwellers on the earth are changed by death." Nature has so ordered it that the sight of the dead openly exposed is disgusting; and humanity, and a proper regard to the health and happiness of the living, equally require that they should be removed from our view.

The most common methods of disposing of the dead have been by "inhumation," or burial, and " cremation," or burning upon the funeral pile. The former method appears to have been the most ancient, and was probably much the most practiced, even before the introduction of Christianity. But burning was very common in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as other less civilized countries. Nor were the Jews strangers to it, as we learn from the fact that the bodies of Saul and his sons were burned by the men of Jabesh-Gilead, after they had been rescued by them from the Philistines. 1 Sam. xxxi, 12. Their bones were then buried under a tree in Jabesh. When David heard of this exploit of the men of Jabesh-Gilead, he commended them highly; (2 Sam. ii, 5;) and afterward removed the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh to the sepulchre of their fathers in Zelah. 2 Sam. xxi, 14. Asa, too, appears to have been burnt "in a bed which was filled with sweet odors and divers kinds of spices," though there has been some difference of opinion with regard to it. 2 Chron. xvi, 14. In cases of burning, the remaining bones and ashes were usually collected with great care and preserved in urns.

Other methods, it will occur to every one, have prevailed in particular nations. The Egyptians, as is well known, practiced embalming; and the carbonized remains of millions, thus prepared

three thousand years ago, are still preserved. They were unquestionably led to adopt this custom by their belief in the doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls. The ancient Scythians were accustomed to suspend the dead bodies of their friends in the air to putrefy; and the same usage has prevailed among some tribes of savages in modern times. The inhabitants of Thibet have a dread against committing the remains of their friends to the earth, but choose rather to allow them to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey!

Among Christian nations, it is believed, inhumation, and this alone, has ever been practiced. Cremation was, indeed, common when Christianity was introduced; but the early Christians seem never to have adopted it, considering it contrary to the spirit of their religion. It is very natural to suppose their feelings may have been excited against it by witnessing so many of their number suffer martyrdom by burning at the stake. The introduction of Christianity produced in other respects considerable change in the ordinary modes of interment. Previous to this time coffins were not in general use, though it is well known expensive sarcophagi were often prepared for the rich and the great. Joseph, as we have seen, was embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt; but it has been very properly remarked, that mention probably is made of the fact because of its being something unusual, and to show the honors that were paid him. The body of our Saviour, it would seem, was not placed in a coffin, nor was that of Elisha, which was touched by the corpse that was let down into the sepulchre, (2 Kings xiii, 21,) nor that of Lazarus.

But we may not add to these desultory remarks on ancient usages. It is well known that great importance has been attached to this subject by all nations in past ages, as well ancient as modern; and recently it has excited a new interest in this country, as has been evinced by the construction of several rural cemeteries, at considerable expense, in the vicinity of some of our most populous cities. The article in the North American Review, the title of which we have used above, contains much important information concerning this new movement, as well as many judicious remarks on the "appropriate rites and modes of burial," of which it is our purpose to avail ourselves.

The first movement in this country toward the construction of a public rural cemetery appears to have been made in Boston, in 1825, but nothing decisive was done. The writer above referred to says:

• Harmer's Observations, chap. i, Ob. 19.