friends can purchase and their united wealth and taste can make attractive; tell him that goodly trees shall wave above him, that birds shall sing around his place of rest, and that his kindred will often gather about his grave, until they, at length, shall lie down beside him; tell him this, and will it not awaken the tenderest emotions of his heart? Explain it as we may, the desire is universal to be interred. among pleasant scenes, and beside one's kindred. The ancients held it a great misfortune not to be buried in the sepulchres of their fathers; and if one died in a distant land, it was his last prayer that his remains might be taken home for interment. The oriental form of salutation, "May you die among your kindred," is one to which all occidental hearts respond. We cannot well rid ourselves of the feeling that there is companionship even in the grave, that it is a blessed thing for those dear in life to sleep near in death, and to sleep, too, in such places that our tombs will be visited and cared for by those who survive us. How happily is this desire met and gratified in the rural cemetery! Here, a spacious burial-lot can be obtained at a moderate sum by every household, that shall remain an heirloom forever sacred and inviolate. Kindred of several generations can repose together, and they may adorn their burial place with such works of art as affection shall dictate. And not only single families, but kindred and affiliated branches may choose their resting-places side by side, the ties of friendship and consanguinity, strong in life, not wholly sundered in death. Furthermore, while families are thus grouped together they are surrounded by the tombs of their neighbors; even the very poor can buy lots at small expense, or receive them as gifts of charity, and the friendless and the stranger can be decently interred. Now when mankind are brought together in such relations, it makes a strong appeal to the heart, and strengthens the ties of kinship and of human brotherhood. Nor is a rural cemetery without its moral advantages. It may be doubted whether a salutary influence is exerted by the charnel-house beneath church buildings, or by the lonely graveyard, bare, bleak, and desolate. The muse of the New Eng land Primer, after wandering in the latter place, very naturally exclaimed, My God! may such an awful sight Awakening be to me; Oh, that, by early grace, I might Such awful sights may sadden our hearts, but they do not mend them. They make us shudder and shrink back, but do not inspire us with submission and hope. They remind us that we must die, but they also make us dread to die, dread that even our insensate bodies must be put into the same festering earth, and be treated with the same neglect. A well-ordered cemetery excites other feelings. It does not blind us to the fact of our mortality-it cannot and should not-but it brings the fact before us in the least forbidding form, and in such connections that, while we are subdued and solemnized, we are also sustained and cheered. Here are the mementoes of death, but here also are memorials of human sympathy and emblems of Christian hope. So that, while we stand and look upon the grave, all manner of pleasant images rise before us. It is not the sepulchre of our joys; it is a chamber of rest, the chamber where a Divine Guest once reposed, to assure us that we might enter it without fear. It is not a door leading into darkness, but the gate of glory, where friends come to say farewells, and to give us joy of our good fortune. It is a wise arrangement of our cemeteries that, while removed from the midst of cities and towns, they are yet placed in their immediate neighborhood-the city of the Dead in near view of the city of the Living. In the heat of our struggle for wealth and place, and in our insane pursuit of pleasure, we need such reminders of our mortality. Turn aside, thou man of business, into this quiet grove, and for a few hours revolve and adjust thy plans by the light of eternity. Come here, care-worn and weary one, to whom "the grave-side is a dearer spot than the fire-side," come and consider whether thy sorrows are not self-imposed, or, if they must be borne, pause and gain assurance of the heavenly rest. Here, if anywhere, will angels come to strengthen thee, and He who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities will give thee power to endure and grace to hope. The tributes of affection and respect which we pay to the departed, are alike laudable in us, and productive of our moral advantage. True, the lifeless body heeds them not. Whether tears and memorial honors, or insensibility and neglect, it is all alike to the dead. But shall we therefore be denied the privilege of testifying our regard? The adoration we pay to our Maker-reverently be it spoken-if withheld by us, would detract nothing from His infinite glory. Yet were we to withhold it, how infinite our loss! So let us keep green the memory of the friends who are taken from us, even though our tributes of respect can do them no good. Let us begrudge no suitable expenditure of means in beautifying their graves and in erecting monuments to their virtues. It will make our hearts better; life will become sweeter and nobler for such pious deeds. Passing, now, from these general and theoretical considerations, we will venture a few practical hints on laying out and embellishing a cemetery. It follows from what has already been said, that a rural cemetery should receive a measure of gardenesque adornment. It should not be left desolate, like many of the old burying-grounds, so forlorn and hideous that the school-boy hurries past them in affright, and both old and young shudder at the thought of being finally deposited. there. It should have the companionship and guardianship of trees, and the grace and attractiveness of flowering plants and vines. One may perhaps question the suitableness of some of the architectural and sculptural embellishments which find their way into cemeteries, but none will doubt the appropriateness of simple, rural decorations. In selecting the site of a cemetery, land moderately elevated and dry should be chosen. The spot should be so near to the town as to be easy of access at all seasons of the year, and yet not so nigh as to sacrifice aught of its sacredness and privacy, or that it will ever be liable to encroachment by the demands of commerce or population. It should also be large enough to meet the wants of many generations. A proper site having been obtained, the premises should be surrounded by a durable fence or hedge. In country places, where cattle and swine are allowed to range in the streets, the gates of a cemetery should be so made as to shut by a law of their own. The grounds should then be laid out and embellished with care. Yet these embellishments must be made under certain restrictions. For example: the roads and walks must be arranged not so much for artistic effect, as for convenience of access to every section and every burial-lot. We cannot devote large expanses of turf to lawns. Here is no place for large parterres of flowers, or purely ornamental sculptures, or any other fanciful conceits which properly belong to pleasure-grounds. The whole surface is not at our disposal, to set groups of trees here, and single specimens there, and thickets elsewhere, as we please. Nearly every square rod of the premises must, sooner or later, be surveyed and laid off into burial-lots, and it will not do to cncumber them with trees. The general character and uses of the place must determine somewhat the style of its embellishments. A cemetery naturally excites reflection upon human mortality, sentiments of respect and kindly remembrance for the dead, and anticipations of the resurrection and the future life. To harmonize best with such thoughts, it would seem that a cemetery should not have the frigid stateliness of a public park, nor the elaborate decorations and high finish of a suburban country-seat. Should it not, rather, be a secluded, cultivated scene, with no air of pretension or display, and awakening no thoughts except those of security, repose, affectionate remembrance, cheerful hope? Mr. Flagg observes: "In laying out a rural cemetery, two points deserve consideration: first, the general design of the whole; second, the particular design of individual objects. The general design is to impress the visitor with a profound religious sentiment, and a feeling of devout contemplation. This can only be promoted by causing the grounds to wear an expression of solemnity and grandeur; and these may be said to constitute the two general effects which are to be studied. The particular design of individual objects is to perpetuate the memory of the dead; and this is promoted by constructing the monuments and their appurtenances in a beauti * ful, simple, and appropriate style. Beauty, simplicity, and propriety are, therefore, some of the particular effects which ought to be studied by the artist." pp. 73. As we have already hinted, very few large trees are wanted in a cemetery. And the frequent practice of chosing a wooded spot for the site, is found by experience to be very unwise. For, when roads and walks are made among the trees, many of the latter become unearthed at the roots, and soon begin to decay. In the improvement of private lots also, and in making interments, trees are often found to be in the way; and if suffered to remain, their wide-spreading roots frequently become cut and mangled; and so, ere long, in some wild gale, the old monarchs come crashing down, demolishing costly monuments, and tearing up the very graves. The result of the whole is that, sooner or later, a large proportion of the trees have to be cut down, and those preserved are seldom worth preserving. Mr. Flagg says, very justly: "Mount Auburn would be at present a more beautiful place, and more convenient for the purposes to which it is dedicated, if, at the time of its consecration as a cemetery, it had been entirely free from wood, and afterwards had been judiciously planted with young trees of the prevailing species. Very few well formed trees are to be seen in these grounds, because they are mostly the elongated trees of the forest, which occupy a great deal of space in proportion to the amount of shade afforded by them, and greatly encumber the burial lots." pp. 238. And what is true of Mt. Auburn, in this respect, is true also of other cemeteries. Can anything be done with trees where they seem so important, and yet are so much in the way? As a partial answer to this question, we beg leave to mention a plan which has been adopted by the trustees of a new cemetery, under the writer's personal observation: A portion of the land being covered with large forest trees, it is proposed to thin them out, from year to year, removing first the oldest and those showing signs of decay, then the tall and ineagre, and finally all, or nearly all, except those standing near the avenues, or in certain spaces left vacant for the purpose. A large part of the premises unoccupied with trees, has |