S.

The Duties we owe to the Dead.

A SERMON,

BY WILLIAM CHAUNCEY FOWLER.

GEN. L., 25, 26. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

THESE Words of the dying patriarch show the natural feelings of the human heart. He was not willing that his body should be buried in Egypt, though he had resided there nearly an hundred years; though, having married the daughter of the priest of On, his children had been born there; though himself, second only to Pharaoh, was lord of the whole country. In his last hours his mind turns towards Canaan, though he had left that country when a youth of seventeen. From the magnificence around him his heart turned toward the dwelling-place of his childhood under the oak tree in Mamre; where dwelt his father Jacob, and his mother Rachel, where dwelt Isaac, in the tent of Sarah his mother, where dwelt Abraham when he entertained the two angels. His heart too, in that hour of retrospection, went to the home of the dead there, to the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, which is before Mamre, which, with all the trees there, was made sure to Abraham as a burying-place for his family. There lay Abraham and Sarah. There lay Isaac and Rebecca. There lay Jacob and Leah. There his heart yearned to lay itself by the side of kindred earth.

Accordingly he took an oath of the children of Israel that they would carry up his bones into Canaan. So they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt. Two hundred years afterwards, their posterity, taking his bones with them when they left Egypt, buried them in Canaan; thus performing their duties to the dead in keeping the oath which their fathers had sworn to the living.

Following the suggestion of the text, I would, on the present occasion, speak of the duties which we owe to the dead; duties, which ought to be distinctly defined and conscientiously performed.

I. WE SHOULD CHERISH THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD IN OUR HEARTS. They are not extinct. They are living still, though not in the body, yet as deathless spirits, having thoughts, feelings and remembrances. As such we are bound not to forget them.

I speak not of those who were nearly strangers to us while living. I speak not of those who by their vices and crimes so degraded themselves that they cannot be thought of, whether living or dead, without pain. But I speak of those who were worthy to be had in remembrance. I speak of those whose souls were united to ours by the ties of friendship; of those whose bodies, united to ours by the ties of blood, were bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Such should carefully be kept in remembrance by voluntary efforts of the mind, assisted by external

mementos.

To preserve the remembrance of their friends after death the Egyptians embalmed their bodies with costly spices, and placing them in boxes of sycamore wood, kept them in their houses standing against the wall for ages. On occasions of festivity, when friends met friends, the dead were not forgotten, but had a place at the table with the living, as they had a place in the house.

For the same purpose the Israelites buried their friends in sepulchres constructed with great care, with hewn stones, and sometimes out of the solid rock, containing several apartments for the reception of the dead. These sepulchres, surmounted with stones or cupolas, and kept constantly white, could not fail to remind the visitors of those who were sleeping in the dark chambers below. Whenever they visited these gardens, as they often did, the images of the dead were present, as if they could still share a part in their enjoyment and their sorrows, and as if the living were not satisfied without their presence. The living regarded life as a journey, at the termination of which they were to be received into the company of their ancestors, or, as the phrase

was, be gathered to their fathers, and they could not fail habitually to remember those whose spirits they expected to meet in the world of spirits, as their bodies were to be joined in burial with their bodies in a common sepulchre, in that very garden. It is no wonder, then, that to be buried with one's friends was regarded as a great privilege; as to lose that privilege was regarded a great calamity. Thus in the language of threatening, it is said to the king of Babylon, "All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own house; but thou art cast out of the grave as an abominable branch, thou shalt not be joined with them in burial."

The early Christians, more deeply believing the soul's immortality, were still more distinguished for their care and their affection for the dead. They paid the highest respect to their final counsels and exhortations. They sang psalms around the corpse while it was kept, and then around the grave, accompanied with prayers and the benediction as a part of the burial service. This service was often repeated on the third day, because in three days Christ rose from the dead; as it was every year as an anniversary commemoration. The doctrine of the resurrection led them to bestow the greatest care on the preservation of the bodies of their deceased friends, to which the souls would return; and accordingly they often excavated those catacombs, those cities of the dead, which by their extent have excited wonder in modern times. The very name which they gave to them, to wit, cemeteries, sleeping-places, indicated not only rest from the labors of life, but resurrection from the sleep of death. Not being ignorant that those who sleep in Jesus, God would bring with him, they cherished an affectionate remembrance of those whom they hoped to meet again in risen and glorified bodies.

The Christian religion, as it manifests the immortality and worth of the soul, so it teaches us to feel a deep interest in the souls of men, whether they dwell in breathing flesh or in the spirit-land. It teaches us to love our friends with a purer love than the heathen feel for theirs while they live, and then to send our hearts to them over the waters of death. It casts a strong light into that dark world, so that we can see them still, and love them still.

Is there however not reason to believe, that as there are those who care very little for their friends while living, so they do not cherish the remembrance of them when dead? Is there not reason to believe that there are those who seemed to love their friends passionately while they were living, but who lose all thought and all affection for them, not long after they were laid in their graves; even though they live in the same house where they lived, and enjoy the labors of their hands, and the tokens of their love.

But you say you love your friends too much while living, and you mourn them too much when dead; that each lonely scene restores them to your imagination to call forth affection from your heart, and tears from your eyes. This may be true of you but not of others; and is it not true of you only in part? Is it not true of you only in regard to certain favorites, while you neglect others both when living and when dead? We love our friends too much, you say. No, said the sainted Payson, "We do not love our friends enough, but we should love Christ more."

But we should cherish the remembrance not merely of our personal friends, but also of the wise and good, whom God intended to be held in everlasting remembrance. They with a generous love toiled, and, it may be, offered up their lives for their race, thus laying their race under obligations to yield them gratitude in return. Whether their names are recorded on the scroll of history, or embalmed in precious poetry; whether the monumental pillar rises to meet the sun in his coming in honor of those who perilled their lives in high places, or sculpture calls from the brute rock the form of Washington to place it under the dome of the capital in the eye of the nation as a memento of its deliverer, we feel that they have earned a remembrance.

And it does us good to remember them, not only because it makes us in spirit like them, but also because it carries us out of the dominion of our senses into the past. "Whatever," says the great English moralist, "withdraws us from the power of our senses, and makes the past, the distant or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would

not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." Why would our patriotism gain force on the plains of Marathon? Because we

should, when on that spot, remember the dead who fought there. Why would our piety grow warmer among the ruins of Iona? Because we should, when among those ruins, think of the sainted. dead who dwelt there.

If, then, nature teaches us to remember the dead; if the Gospel enforces the teachings of nature; if God forgets not his friends, but is God of the dead as well as of the living; if Jesus forgot not his friend Lazarus when in the grave; if he instituted a solemn sacrament in order that he might be remembered; if he died for the dead as well as for the living; if the dead wished to be remembered; and if by remembering the dead we make ourselves better, then we ought to feel ourselves under obligation to cherish a remembrance of the dead.

But, II. WE OUGHT TO REGARD THE WISHES OF THE DEAD. Our duties to intelligent beings do not depend on the accident that they are dwelling in a breathing body, for otherwise we should owe no duty to the Deity who is a spirit. As his will in our relations to him is our perfect rule of life, so the wishes of others, in our relations to them, should have their influence, in accordance with that perfect rule. As in many cases we ought to regard the wishes of the living, so we ought to regard the wishes of the dead, inasmuch as they have a conscious existence and rights as well as the living. These rights may not be recognized in the laws of the land, but they are recognized in the court of conscience and in the chancery of God. When some dying dear one, with a quivering lip, makes a request, we feel that the performance of that request is one of the highest duties that we can owe to a human being. Not to perform it we feel would be an act of the blackest treachery. Whatever it might cost, perform it we would. Thus felt the patriarch Joseph, when he performed the dying request of his father Jacob. Thus felt the children of Israel when they took his bones with them out of Egypt through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, and finally laid them in Canaan as their fathers had promised. How easy was it for them to say, "The promise of our