Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/570



DECENT regard for the body as the tenement of man has led all nations to make some provision for it after physical death has taken place. The old doctrine of some mystical reunion of the body and spirit at the resurrection has led to embalming and various other customs which have tended to preserve as long as possible the earthly part of our being. So sacred are burial places regarded among Christian people that the churchyard has been called "God's Acre." The Saxon phrase grew out of the notion that the mortal seed planted on earthly soil would sometime and in some way germinate for an immortal harvest.

The really significant reason for care of our dead grows out of the memorial character of the grave, and the monument which should mark it, and it is evidence of a high standard of Christian intelligence and love when we witness the proper monument and memorial offerings in memory of the departed. Here in the churchyard or cemetery seem to centre and localize the affection and regard held for our friends, and our minds group about the grave the memories for which it stands. Here they have a certain "local habitation and a name."

Westminster Abbey, in London, is one of the oldest of the great church cemeteries of England, and those who would pay respect to the memory of her great men, her heroes, her poets, her statesmen, her crowned heads, go there to meditate, and cast their wreaths of affection or honor. The most interesting spot at Mt. Vernon is the tomb