eyes and folded arms, seems musing over the flowers which Affection has planted on their graves. In a dimly-lighted, breathless City churchyard, such images are not seen: our affections are there fettered the imagination is chained down, and endeavours in vain to soar heavenward. If we call up the dead, they seem to sit weeping with bent head and folded wings among the dark shadows of the mouldering monuments on which the sunlight seldom falls.

Against these unhealthy graveyards sentence has been pronounced: they are doomed to be closed. It is useless for selfish and mercenary men to oppose the fiat which has gone forth, for the air of this mighty city has too long been poisoned through men who live by the dead. Let us create a good out of this evil; and after these unhealthy churchyards have been closed long enough to destroy the injurious exhalations which have of late numbered so many of the living with the dead, then let the grounds be planted with trees and flowers, and they will become sweet breathing-places, like our squares, and amid the brick walls call up images of the far-away country. The old monuments need not be disturbed. To see the drooping branches of a green tree falling over them, will add to their beauty and solemnity; and in the centre of our cities we can wander among groves rendered sacred by the remains of our forefathers,- -can in the dim twilight-shadows which the flickering leaves will ever make, hold communion with the spirit of John Bunyan, while we peruse his immortal work in the burying-ground of Bunhill-fields; for by such association would these spots become hallowed. Nor would the records of the dead, who sleep without the walls of the church, be held less sacred, if their names were engraven on marble tablets, and placed within the consecrated buildings around which their dust would repose, beneath beds of blowing flowers and close-leaved ever

greens.

The old grey weather-beaten tombs of the founders of charities would look more venerable overtopped by the tall elm, the sable yew, or the weeping willow, that seems ever to droop sadly above the dead. No busy builder should ever be permitted to rear a wall within these sacred enclosures, or disturb the robin that would pipe his sweet anthem in autumn, or drive away the belted bee, that would come over the high houses from some distant meadow, to make a plaintive murmur in the heart of this vast city as he flew in and out among the flowers that waved above these old households of the dead.

Let us not sow these places with salt, nor strew them with lime, to destroy every trace of what they really are-spots sanctified by tears and prayers, and the bodies of our brother men; but, if necessity demands it, remove some of their remains tenderly to other places of

sepulture, and make gardens over the graves of those who are left undisturbed-spots above which the blue sky might be seen, while the sunshine slept below; amid which we could obtain glimpses of the face of heaven, while musing over the memory of those who have long since entered the gates of the "golden city.”. Let not these old burial-grounds be closed with no more reverence than if we were shutting up a common sewer; let us not speak of them as loathsome, disgusting, and revolting, because they are made so by unfeeling, money-loving men-gnomes, who feed and fatten on the dead-who look on coffins as they do on cabbages-digging, planting, cutting down, and re-setting the ground, and only studying how to make more money; but let us remember that the mute and inoffensive dead contribute not unto the evils complained of until they are dislodged with brutal violence-that they cannot defend themselves, for

"They are very mild and meek;

Though (sextons) smite them on the cheek
And on the mouth-they cannot speak."

The inhuman vultures who prey on them injure the living, and only insult the dead through our sensitiveness. To the dead it matters not:

"They hear not (Poor-law guardians) rave,
Nor moaning household shelter crave

(When carted from each thrice-sold grave).”

When our old churches were first built, they stood in wide, open, breezy spaces, at the remote ends of parish boundaries: such was Bartholomew Church, when Smithfield was really a field, and the lofty elm-trees towered high above the ancient gallows which was erected there. We have hemmed in the spots with streets and tall warehouses which our forefathers left free and open between the living and the dead, until they have become so close and breathless, that even the sparrows forsake their "old ancestral eaves," and seek for other roosting-places.

.

Open cheap cemeteries, and conveyances thither, will spring up rapidly enough; funeral omnibuses will be started at little more than the present fares. If nothing else will do, let us be rated for burying our dead: we do not murmur at supporting them while living, nor should we begrudge the slight tax that would be required for interring them in Suburban Cemeteries. There are thousands of acres of land to be sold within five miles of the City of London; if we go to the distance of ten miles it will be all the better for our children's children; but let no buildings be erected within a measured mile of

these Silent Cities of the Dead, but each for ever remain a Great Garden of Graves.

Affection would often visit this Land of the Dead; the widow would take her children by the hand, and lead them into the country, to shew them the little freehold in which their father slept. The poor would become more pious, and amid their troubles thank God that they had at last a tranquil haven, in which they could for ever moor their storm-tossed barques: to them suburban cemeteries would become spots filled with solemn associations-homes to which they were fast hastening with patient resignation.

To us there is no feeling of loneliness while wandering through a beautiful cemetery. The dead seem to belong to us; they are of our company; they have but taken their berths in the great ship, and are sleeping until we come to join them, to be fellow-voyagers with them into the unknown sea of eternity-trusting ourselves to the care of the same Almighty Captain whose "ministering angels" fill the sails. Around the cemetery we see the wide unwalled country, where we have so often walked and talked with those who now "sleep their long sleep," and, while gazing over the landscape, they seem to accompany us, and to live again in our thoughts; or we stand, as it were, in a great picture-gallery, surrounded with portraits of the dead: not a single object rises up to shock our feelings;-the open country beyond the trees around-the flowers that cover the graves by which we stand-cause us to contemplate death kindly, and, instead of becoming hideous, he is but a gentle porter, who sits patiently without the gates of heaven, and welcomes all who are prepared to enter.

To plant a grave with such flowers as "the poor inhabitant below" loved whilst living, is a pious pleasure: it is a living link between us and the dead, and keeps alive an affection which belongs not to the world; though a "poor thing, it is our own;" for we know that the flowers are kept alive by an invisible hand, that in the still dark night they continue to grow, while we are wrapt in as sound a slumber as that which falls upon the dead-the only difference being that we perchance may again awaken. There is no such link between us and them in a cold, grey, hard, dead tombstone: the tears which fall upon the flowers are not lost, for we know not but that the perfume may be wafted to heaven.

We believe that the dead will again arise-that in some other state we shall again meet with them; and yet there are those who make their remains a source of profit. Perchance, the Angel of Death holds his court beyond the grave, and they may be summoned before him to account for their deeds. We, in our boyish days, were taught