* 
 
 
 
 
THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN CEMETERY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 LAST WAR-CRY OF THE COMMUNISTS. 
 
 BY 
 
 MONSEIGNEUR GAUME, 
 
 PROTHONOTARY APOSTOLIC. 
 
 “ I can forgive a great deal; but I detest the Atheist and the Infidel. How 
 can you expect me to tolerate that creature who, by denying the existence of the 
 soul, proclaims to the world that he is a soulless clod of earth, and seeks to make 
 me, like himself, but living dirt ? ” 
 
 Napoleon I., Sentiments sur It Christ, p. 77. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 BY REV. RICHARD BRENNAN, A.M. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 
 BY VERY REV. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 NEW-YORK. AND CINCINNATI: 
 
 'BENZIGER BROTHERS, 
 
 Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 
 
 1874. 
 
"B R I \5% 
 
 c.„; 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 BENZIGER BROTHERS, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 

 Preface.. 
 
 Introduction 
 
 FIRST LETTER. 
 
 Page 
 
 .. 9 
 
 ..ii 
 
 “War on the Cemetery!” the Word of Command to the Revo¬ 
 lutionists—Conflict between Good and Evil—Hatred toward 
 
 ( the Christian Cemetery—Reason of this Hatred—Two oppos¬ 
 ing Doctrines—Teaching of Christianity with regard to the 
 human Body—Words of Tertullian—Pagan Teachings—Re¬ 
 buke of Napoleon I.....17 
 
 SECOND LETTER. 
 
 Hostilities begun—Pagan Philosophy of the last Century— 
 Remove the Cemeteries—Ordinance forbidding Burials in 
 Cities—Old Catholic Customs abolished—Government for¬ 
 bids their Revival—One Cemetery for all—Priests must not 
 interfere..25 
 
 THIRD LETTER. 
 
 Removal of Crosses from Dwellings—Destruction of Crosses 
 in the Cemeteries—Desecration of Graves—Pagan Emblems 
 and Inscriptions—Suppression of Catholic Sepulture in Bel¬ 
 gium—Potter’s Field—Aim of the Revolutionary Party— 
 Affairs in Belgium—Horror of Catholics for the Political 
 Charnel-House—Violation of their Liberties.40 
 
4 
 
 Contents. 
 
 FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 Further Hostilities against Catholic Burial—Society to make 
 Funerals a Political Job—Exclusion of Catholics, rich and 
 poor—A Touching Incident—Subscription toward securing 
 Christian Burial—Protest of the Bishop of Gand—Insolent 
 Reply of the Mayor—Protest of an eminent Magistrate—Elo¬ 
 quent Language of a Catholic.49 
 
 FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 Extent of the War upon Catholic Sepulture—Appeal to the 
 Catholics—Demands of Modern Pagans—Demands of the 
 Catholics—Hostility to Catholic Sepulture in Italy—Burials 
 among the “ Solidaires”—Governments petitioned to burn 
 the Dead—Revival of Paganism—Persecution in Switzer¬ 
 land—No Priests at Funerals.58 
 
 SIXTH LETTER. 
 
 Infidel Funerals in Paris and Versailles—Noble Conduct of the 
 Catholic Soldiers and Deputies—Groundless Claims of the 
 “ Solidaires”.67 
 
 SEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 Good out of Evil—Discomfiture of the “ Solidaires”—Words of 
 General Du Barail—Traffic in Dead Bodies—Notice of the 
 Prefect of Lyons—Audacity of the “ Solidaires ”—Reflec¬ 
 tions.77 
 
 EIGHTH LETTER. 
 
 Genealogy of the “Solidaires”—Man an educated Being— 
 Remarks of a Missionary Bishop—Two Systems of Educa¬ 
 tion : the Divine and the Satanic, Christian and Pagan—The 
 “Solidaires” taught by the Pagans: Proofs—It is a Mis¬ 
 take to attribute the Rise of Rationalism to Protestantism— 
 Proof—Something about Luther.86 
 
Contents . 
 
 5 
 
 NINTH LETTER. 
 
 Further Evidence that Rationalists and “ Solidaires” are the Re¬ 
 sult of Pagan Literature, and not of Protestantism—Remedy 
 for the Evil.95 
 
 TENTH LETTER. 
 
 Only Bishops can consecrate Cemeteries—The Five Crosses 
 and Fifteen Candles explained—Beauty of the Prayers used— 
 Elevated Ideas of the Cemetery—Dignity of the Human 
 Body—Power of Evil Spirits over the Dead—Examples, 
 Explanation, and Defense of Christian Practices.104 
 
 ELEVENTH LETTER 
 
 • O' * 
 
 Duties in regard to Cemeteries—Four Modes ofmanitesting our 
 Reverence—Cemeteries must be inclosed—Visits to Ceme¬ 
 teries—Appeals to our Eyes, Hearts, and Souls—Surround¬ 
 ings—Ungrateful to forget our Dead—Swiss Burial-Grounds 
 —The “Solidaires” shocked.115 
 
 TWELFTH LETTER. 
 
 A short History of Cemeteries—Ancient Modes of disposing of 
 the Dead—Interments in Dwellings—Respect for Burial- 
 Places—Cremation—Confused Remembrance among the Pa¬ 
 gans of the Law of Inhumation—Our Duty toward the 
 Unburied—Whose Bodies were left unburied.. .123 
 
 THIRTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Cremation—Why practiced—Mode of saving the Ashes—An¬ 
 cient “ Columbaries ”—General Cemeteries—Their Anti¬ 
 quity—The Property of the Church.130 
 
 FOURTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Why the Church blesses Cemeteries—Dignity of the Human 
 Body—Consoling Doctrine of Tertullian....138 
 
6 
 
 Contents . 
 
 FIFTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Dignity, Sanctity, and Beauty of the Christian's Body—Words 
 of Tertullian—Pious Customs—Discomfiture of the Irreve¬ 
 rent..M7 
 
 SIXTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 One more Reason why the Church blesses her Cemeteries— 
 Second Sermon preached by the Cemetery r Doctrine of Uni¬ 
 versal Brotherhood—Interments within Church Edifices— 
 Words of St. Chrysostom... 155 
 
 SEVENTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Interments around Churches—Within Cities—Decree of the 
 Council of Rome—Blessing of Cemeteries very ancient— 
 Practice in the Sixth Century—The Cemetery teaching, by 
 Means of the Burial Ceremonies, one Brotherhood among 
 Men—Historical Facts...164 
 
 EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Third Sermon of the Cemetery : The Existence and Immortality 
 of the Soul—The Cemetery blessed out of regard for the human 
 Body—The Body of Man sanctified by the Soul—Ceremonies 
 preceding Interment—Dialogue between the Living and the 
 Dead—The Libera—Alms—Decorations—Position of the 
 Corpse—The Cross. 173 
 
 NINETEENTH LETTER. 
 
 All the Prayer:* for the Dead proclaim the Immortality of the 
 Soul—Prayers on the Third, Seventh, Thirtieth, and Fortieth 
 Days—Anniversary Services—The Dead aware of our Prayers 
 —Catholic Teaching..180 
 
 TWENTIETH LETTER. 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul believed by savage as well as 
 civilized Nations.i3$ 
 
Contents. 
 
 7 
 
 TWENTY-FIRST LETTER. 
 
 The Fourth Sermon of the Cemetery—“The Resurrection of 
 the Body”—Meaning of the Word Cemetery—Beautiful Ex¬ 
 planation by St. Chrysostom—The Victories won by Christ— 
 Defeat of Satan—Other Names for the Cemetery—The Trans¬ 
 formation of the Seed in the Soil, a Figure of the Change un¬ 
 dergone by the human Body.. i99 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND LETTER. 
 
 The Cemetery a Place of temporary Rest—Our Lord’s Teach¬ 
 ings—He foretells His own Resurrection—Death is but Sleep 
 —Citation from St. Paul—From St. John—Pagan Opposition 
 —The Fathers of the Church.208 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD LETTER. 
 
 Beautiful and solid Philosophy of the Fathers—Their Argument 
 on the Resurrection—Beautiful Passage from Tertullian— 
 Answer to Objections—Nothing perishable in Nature—The 
 “ Solidaires”.217 
 
 TWENTY-FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 We shall rise from the Dead—God’s Attributes require it—God’s 
 two great Books—Both teach the Resurrection—The Uni¬ 
 verse preaches the Resurrection—St. Chrysostom—Tertul¬ 
 lian—St. Augustine—Testimony of Job and St. Paul.224 
 
 TWENTY-FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 We shall rise again—God’s Wisdom demands it—Evidence— 
 All Nations have held this Belief—Practice among the 
 Romans—Argument of Tertullian—Divine Justice requires 
 our Resurrection to Life..233 
 
 TWENTY-SIXTH LETTER. 
 
 We shall rise again : God’s Goodness demands it—Dignity of 
 the human Body—God loves it—It is the Brother of Christ— 
 He must restore it to Life, or be wanting in Love—Evidences 
 of a future Resurrection written in the Book of Nature— 
 Written in our Bodies—Language of St. Augustine—Review 
 of these Letters.241 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 -• - 
 
 We have read these letters of Monseigneur 
 Gaume with much pleasure, and congratulate the 
 Rev. Father Brennan on the good and even elegant 
 translation which he has made, and now presents 
 to the public. No words of ours are likely to add 
 any thing to the interest with which his work will 
 be read, or to the profit which may be gained 
 from it. 
 
 It seems to us that the publication of the letters 
 in our language will be attended with two very 
 important results. It will awaken the reader to 
 the alarming facts of which many of us are igno¬ 
 rant, and which threaten great evils to society. 
 Infidelity has become very bold when it dares to 
 rifle the grave, and exult in driving the consolations 
 of religion from the dying-hour. The attempt to 
 deny God and His providence goes to the extent of 
 thorough atheism, and makes man only a clod of 
 the earth, with no higher hopes than those of the 
 beasts that perish. In our own country, no legis¬ 
 lature has as yet sought to prevent the recognition 
 of God at the tomb, or disturb the rites of Christian 
 burial. Yet men who call themselves intelligent , 
 
IO 
 
 Preface. 
 
 are discussing the immortality of the soul, as if it 
 were an open question, or yet to be proved. And 
 we have seen articles in leading journals in favor 
 of burning the bodies of the dead, and thus putting 
 an end to what they call the physical evils of 
 cemeteries. 
 
 The second result which should flow from the 
 knowledge of facts so startling, is a truer fidelity 
 to that religion which alone can protect all that is 
 most dear to man. Since the Protestant reforma¬ 
 tion, we have seen every article of faith denied 
 until there is nothing left of Christianity. Its pro¬ 
 tection over our lives and its care for the dead, 
 w^ich came from the incarnation and death of 
 the Son of God, are both taken away by that 
 license of private judgment whose true name is un¬ 
 belief, or the rejection of the supernatural. No 
 creed can stand, no revelation be preached, no 
 light shine beyond the grave, but from “ the pillar 
 and ground of the truth,” which rests on Jesus 
 Christ, and the verity of His divinity. Those who 
 will not accept atheism, with its sad havoc of all 
 that is noble or moral, must return to the safe 
 shelter of that Church which can never change, but 
 in her dispensation is like her divine Founder, 
 
 “ the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever.” 
 
 T. S. P. 
 
 New-York, March 26, 1874. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It may be necessary to explain briefly the 
 title of this little work, The Cemetery in the 
 Nineteenth Century. 
 
 But a few months ago, I concluded my last 
 work, The Angelus in the Nineteenth Cen¬ 
 tury , with the following words : “ Those who 
 honor me, says the Blessed Virgin, will have 
 life everlasting. With this consoling thought, 
 I now take leave of you, my dear friend, and 
 laydown my pen ; for my day is drawing to a 
 close : advespeiascit, et inclinata est jam dies.” 
 
 These were the concluding words of what 
 I intended to be the last will and testament of 
 a long literary life. But my young friend, 
 Frederic, at whose request I wrote The 
 Angelus , The Holy Water , and The Sign of 
 the Cross in the Nineteenth Century, refuses 
 to let me rest. On his return, a few days 
 ago, from an extended tour through Belgium 
 
12 
 
 Introduction . 
 
 and Germany, he wrote to me, saying: “ A 
 man may revoke his last will and testament at 
 any moment before death. Thank God, you 
 are not dead: and although ripe in years, 
 are not old. It is not honorable for the soldier 
 to lay down his arms while the battle is raging, 
 and you know better than I, that the contest 
 between right and wrong is now more fierce 
 than ever. As in the desert of old, Jesus 
 Christ and the devil stand face to face. 
 There is war on all sides. I have found that 
 Germany and Belgium are but brigades in 
 that grand army of evil, called the Revolution , 
 whose hordes are to be found in every country, 
 both of the old and new world. It is a war of 
 extermination; for, as in the ancient combats 
 of the gladiators, but one victor can remain 
 upon the conquered field. The avowed ob¬ 
 ject is the utter extermination of Christianity, 
 with its institutions, doctrines, maxims, and 
 traditions. 
 
 “We must fly to the defense of each point of 
 attack. Permit me then, my dear preceptor, 
 to direct your attention to that exposed point 
 for the capture of which, the enemy has, up to 
 the present time, used strategy; but which he 
 is now assaulting by open and violent warfare. 
 All Catholics are deeply interested in its de- 
 
Introduction. 
 
 13 
 
 fense; for what spot is dearer to them than 
 the home of their dead, the consecrated ceme¬ 
 tery ?” 
 
 Defend the cemetery! What is Frederic 
 dreaming about ? Where is the sense or rea¬ 
 son of such an undertaking ? What connec¬ 
 tion is there between a cemetery and the great 
 questions of the day? Such were my first 
 thoughts on reading my friends letter. But 
 after some reflection, and examination of facts, 
 my wonder took flight, and I began to under¬ 
 stand the value of the strategic point which I 
 was called upon to defend. Summoning, 
 therefore, to my assistance all Catholics—pre¬ 
 lates, priests, and people—I will mount guard 
 at the sacred portals of our Christian Cemetery. 
 My reasons for entering on this duty, as well 
 as the explanation of these letters, will be 
 found in the following proposition: The 
 cemetery is the last point of attack in the 
 sanguinary struggle between Christianity and 
 infidelity in the nineteenth century. 
 
 Atheism, after having driven God from the 
 birth of man by forbidding baptism, and ex¬ 
 pelled Him from social life by shutting Him 
 out from the marriage ceremony, would now 
 tear Him away from man’s death-bed and 
 grave, by denying to ministers of religion the 
 
Introduction , 
 
 14 
 
 right to be present at one or the other. The 
 place of burial, instead of being, as it always 
 was, and still is among nations, whether civi¬ 
 lized or barbarous, a solemn and sacred resting- 
 place for the dead, is, in the atheists’ estimation, 
 nothing but a rubbish-heap; for man, they say, 
 is but a soulless mass of rubbish. To carry 
 out their views, they have invaded and dese¬ 
 crated Christian cemeteries, taken advantage 
 of the timidity or poverty of families, to force 
 upon them funerals devoid of all religion, and 
 paraded their irreligious demonstrations in 
 the eyes of the public, in city and country. 
 
 These odious scandals are but the practical 
 result of the theories held and taught by the 
 infidels of our day : such as Atheism, Materi¬ 
 alism, Positivism, Socialism, Communism, and 
 “ Solidairism.” Cast all these excrescences of 
 Liberalism into the alembic ; mix them well 
 together, and you obtain as a result what 
 sensible people call “ The dog who would bury 
 his neighbor like a dog.”* 
 
 To protest, therefore, with all the energy of 
 my soul, in the name of humanity, in the 
 name of society and religion, against this style 
 of animal-burials, now, like suicide, becom- 
 
 * Enterre-chien. 
 
Introduction . 
 
 *5 
 
 ing fashionable, is the general aim of these 
 letters. 
 
 In perusing them, the reader will discover 
 that these bold attacks upon our cemeteries 
 and Christian modes of burial are but a part 
 in the general plan of destruction intended 
 by the revolutionary party. Whilst learning 
 the true value of a Christian cemetery, and re¬ 
 freshing our faith in the great truths which it 
 preaches, we shall see more clearly that our 
 courage in defending it must be commensu¬ 
 rate with the opposition of the enemy. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r. , r, •• 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CEMETERY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 -♦ » ♦- 
 
 FIRST LETTER. 
 
 s— 
 
 “War on the Cemetery!” the Word of Command to the 
 Revolutionists—Conflict between Good and Evil— 
 Hatred toward the Christian Cemetery—Reason of 
 this Hatred— Two opposing Doctrines—Teachings of 
 Christianity with regard to the Human Body—Words 
 of Tertullian—Pagan Teachings—Rebuke of Napo- 
 
 LEON I. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 You are right: the cry is, “ War on the 
 cemetery !” During the first days of the Re¬ 
 volution of 1789, the cry throughout France 
 was, “ War on the castles!” and immediately 
 many of the most wealthy, ancient, and 
 hospitable dwellings were pillaged and de¬ 
 stroyed. This was the first attack of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 “ War on the cemeteries!” is now the cry of 
 
 • ' 
 
18 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 these same revolutionists. The word of com¬ 
 mand has passed along the line of that anti- 
 Christian army whose rank and file, more de¬ 
 praved and stronger than the outlaws of 1793, 
 gladly obey their orders. To prove the actual 
 existence of this warfare against the cemetery, 
 to expose its tactics, to show its object, how it 
 is identified with the struggle between good 
 and evil, to indicate what we Catholics should 
 do in order to escape defeat, is the object of 
 this little work. 
 
 You see at once, as every one must, who 
 has his eyes open, that we are engaged in a 
 mighty and decisive contest between right and 
 wrong. Since the revival of paganism in 
 Europe, a new spirit has influenced the gov¬ 
 ernments, leading them into apostasy, and 
 thence to excess and ruin. 
 
 This spirit, in its hostility to Christianity, 
 never ceases to cry out to it in every language: 
 
 Get out of my way, and let me replace you. 
 The world is mine ; for centuries I was its king 
 and its god. Driven by Jesus Christ from my 
 throne and my altars, I now expel Him in re¬ 
 turn. I reclaim my empire. Leave the hearts 
 and souls of the people; leave politics, philoso¬ 
 phy, history, science, literature, and the arts. 
 Leave the family, the school, the social life, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 19 
 
 and the death-bed of man. Make room for 
 me. Thy reign is over, and mine begins.” 
 
 The evil spirit is mistaken : his reign has 
 begun, and is now well-nigh established. 
 
 For where, in the world purchased by the 
 blood of Christ, do we find the standard of 
 His royal authority ? He reigns, governs, and 
 triumphs. Christus vincit , regnat , imperat. 
 Where? What remains to His spouse, the 
 Church, of her former moral and temporal 
 power? What has become of her influence 
 on society ? Where are her temporalities ? 
 Who owns the souls of her children ? Who 
 presides at the three most solemn and impor¬ 
 tant events in life, namely, birth, marriage, and 
 death ? The spirit of antichrist, so far as he 
 could, has usurped all these in the hope of 
 wiping out every trace of Christianity. “ In 
 modern society,” say its partisans, “ the state 
 is supreme in the birth, marriage, and death 
 of its citizens.”* 
 
 Hence it must lay claim to the cemetery; 
 for, if it has the right of regulating man’s 
 death, it must also control his burial; one 
 right is consequent upon the other. Be¬ 
 sides, the Christian cemetery disturbs the 
 spirit of evil; for it is a preacher, the power 
 
 * Journal de Gand, January, 1873. 
 
20 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 of whose eloquence shakes the very founda¬ 
 tions of the satanic structure of incredulity, 
 sensuality, and materialism. His mouth must 
 be closed at any cost. 
 
 i\s you desire, I will relate the various and 
 tortuous windings by which this old serpent 
 is getting into the resting-places of our dead, 
 in order to profane and destroy them. To 
 understand his mode of attack, you must go 
 back through the whole history of the human 
 family to the first breaking out of hostilities. 
 Two opposite influences have been at work 
 in the world; the divine and satanic. With¬ 
 out this dogma, which is held in some form by 
 all people, nothing can be explained. Hav¬ 
 ing conquered man in Paradise, Satan inaugu¬ 
 rated his power and his service upon earth. 
 By falsifying mans notion of truth, he estab¬ 
 lished paganism, or, as St. Paul terms it, “ the 
 times of ignorance.” (Acts 17 : 30.) 
 
 In the fullness of time the Sun of Justice 
 rose above the horizon, and as it appeared 
 upon the eternal hills, illuminans tu mirabiliter 
 a montibus eeternis , Satan and his agents fled; 
 the darkness of night gave place to the light 
 which broke forth and shone on humanity all 
 over the world. This was Christianity. 
 
 Thus, ever since the fall of man, there have 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 21 
 
 been two oracles in the world—the oracle of 
 truth and the oracle of falsehood Two 
 fathers, founders of two different citadels— 
 Satan, the father of lies, the founder of the 
 citadel of iniquity and implacable enemy of 
 man, homicida ab initio; and the Word made 
 flesh—founder of the citadel of virtue, Creator 
 of all things, Redeemer of fallen men, the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life; Via , Veritas, et Vita . 
 
 Our Lord and Belial, Christianity and Pa¬ 
 ganism, being thus diametrically opposed to 
 each other, you will understand how very dif¬ 
 ferently they must regard the human body 
 during its life as well as its resting-place after 
 death. Christian teaching engenders a pro¬ 
 found respect for man’s body and requires a 
 sacred place for its burial. Pagan teaching, 
 begetting a hatred for a dead body, demands 
 its immediate removal to any common pit or 
 sewer, or, as the Scripture says, “to be buried 
 with the burial of an ass, rotten and cast forth 
 without the gates.” (Jer. 22:19.) 
 
 Let us hear what these two oracles have to 
 say: “Man’s body,” says the Christian ora¬ 
 cle, is the visible masterpiece of the Creator. 
 The Word made flesh is its type. It was 
 created very differently from all other created 
 beings, no matter how excellent they may be. 
 
22 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 They were the effect of an imperative and 
 spontaneous fiat, while the human body was 
 formed and shaped by God, after mature re¬ 
 flection and a council held by the three Divine 
 Persons. Divine Omnipotence, Infinite Wis¬ 
 dom, and Boundless Love, directing their eyes 
 toward the body of the Second Adam, come 
 together and fashion the body of the first 
 Adam, after uttering those words so expres¬ 
 sive of the incomprehensible dignity of our 
 bodies : “ Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et 
 similitudinem nostram.” “ Let us make man 
 to our own image and likeness.” 
 
 Such is the body of man in general. What 
 is the body of the Christian man ? St. Paul 
 tells us that nothing is more deserving of our 
 respect than the body of the Christian. He 
 calls it the vessel in which we carry God, and 
 glorify Him ; the living temple of the Holy 
 Ghost, a member of Jesus Christ, and the in¬ 
 heritor of His glory. 
 
 Elevated into a supernatural state by bap¬ 
 tism, it becomes the medium of sacramental 
 grace to our souls. When laid in the grave, 
 like the seed sown in the soil, it is to await 
 a glorious day of resurrection. And often, 
 while awaiting its eternal triumph in heaven, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 23 
 
 it is placed upon our altars and made the 
 object of our respect and veneration. 
 
 The respect which the Church manifests 
 toward the bodies of her children is a neces¬ 
 sary consequence of the doctrine of Christi¬ 
 anity, as is also her exclusive right to their 
 burial, and to the ownership and guardian¬ 
 ship of her cemeteries. You know that this 
 triple right was universally recognized for 
 many centuries. 
 
 But our modern nations, having turned 
 their backs upon Christianity, and returned 
 to paganism, of course Christian sepulture 
 must be paganized, desecrated, and brutalized; 
 for the greatness of the fall is in proportion to 
 the height from which we descend.. The se¬ 
 cularization of Christian funerals in the bosom 
 of communities once Catholic, is openly and 
 insolently demanded by paganism, liberalism, 
 materialism, and solidairism; for they are all 
 one and the same vile thing. 
 
 Boldly denying the divine origin of man, as 
 well as his future immortality, they utter the 
 most absurd, most contradictory propositions 
 concerning the development and evolution of 
 an improved breed of monkeys, and the mi¬ 
 grations of souls. With them, a lifeless body 
 is an object of aversion, to be got rid of as 
 
2 4 
 
 The Christian Cemetery. 
 
 soon as possible, by police regulations, and out 
 of regard to the public health. From these 
 premises is deduced the whole pagan system 
 and manner of sepulture. 
 
 Let me rebuke them in the words of Napo¬ 
 leon I.: “I can pardon many things, but I 
 detest an infidel materialist. How can you 
 ask me to have any thing in common with a 
 man who, not believing in the soul’s exist¬ 
 ence, proclaims himself a clod of dirt, and 
 wishes to consider me a similar clod ?” 
 
 To-morrow we shall see how these soulless 
 “clods of dirt” succeeded in befouling our 
 cemeteries. 
 
SECOND LETTER. 
 
 Hostilities begun—Pagan Philosophy of the last Cen¬ 
 tury—Remove the Cemeteries—Ordinance forbidding 
 Burials in Cities—Old Catholic Customs abolished— 
 Government forbids their Revival—One Cemetery for 
 all—Priests must not interfere. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 Strictly speaking, it was in the last century 
 that active measures of hostility were directed 
 against the rite of Christian burial. The “ phi¬ 
 losophers” of that dismal period, true to their 
 pagan training, were loud in their demands 
 to have the peaceful abodes of the dead re¬ 
 moved from proximity to the dwellings of the 
 living. Solicitude for the public health was 
 the mask behind which they carried on their 
 warfare. “ The cemeteries,” they said, “ were 
 hot-beds of contagious diseases; they must 
 be removed unless we wish the dead to kill 
 the living,” and lying and false arguments, 
 backed up by lachrymose petitions, were at 
 once 'brought to bear upon the civil author¬ 
 ities. 
 
 The answer to these objections was simple 
 and easy. It was only necessary to defy these 
 
26 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 pretended philanthropists to cite a single ex¬ 
 ample, in all Europe, of any disease arising 
 from proximity to a place of burial. Usually, 
 in Catholic countries, the cemetery surround¬ 
 ed the church; God had His field adjoining 
 His house. Even in the warmer countries, 
 Rome, for example, the dead have been buried 
 in churches, and yet no detriment to public 
 health has ever been discovered to arise from 
 this custom. 
 
 “ There is no doubt,” says Bergier, “ but 
 that it is right and proper to protect cities and 
 towns from all danger of contagion. Why, 
 then, if you are sincere, do you allow so many 
 taverns, gambling-hells, and other sinks of 
 moral and physical corruption to exist? any 
 one of which is a thousand times more fatal 
 to the well-being of your citizens than the 
 presence of the harmless dead ! However it 
 may be in cities, we maintain that in the open 
 country, where the air has room to circulate, 
 there is absolutely no danger.”* 
 
 You see, my dear friend, that the removal 
 of the cemeteries, demanded by the infidels 
 of the last century, was, as it is to-day, only 
 a vain pretext. “ Permit me,” says the Abbe 
 Proyart, “ to declare that in the town where 
 
 * Bergier, Diction. Theolog., Art. Cimeti&re. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 27 
 
 I was born, and where the burial-ground is 
 shut in by three houses, one of which was my 
 fathers, the inhabitants of these very houses 
 were remarkable for good health and long 
 lives. I remember that, just at the time when 
 these materialists were most afraid of their 
 dead brethren, and loudest in their clamor to 
 send them far away, a judicial inquiry was in¬ 
 stituted, at which it was proved that the in¬ 
 habitants of the houses surrounding one of 
 the worst-regulated cemeteries in Paris, were 
 all in excellent health, and lived as long as 
 their more wealthy neighbors of the healthi¬ 
 est parts of the city.” 
 
 Under this pretended anxiety for the pub¬ 
 lic health lay concealed a malicious rebuke 
 to the Catholic Church. This careful mother, 
 whom centuries had looked up to as filled 
 with solicitude for the spiritual and temporal 
 welfare of all her children, poor and rich, 
 stood charged with culpable negligence. 
 
 Besides, the removal of the cemeteries was 
 
 ♦* 
 
 an effectual means of speedily smothering 
 every sentiment of devotion for the dead. 
 Bury your fiiends far away, inclose them with * 
 a high wall lock the gate, and how often will 
 it be within your power to visit the resting- 
 plrce of your nearest and dearest relative? 
 
2 8 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Let there be no sensible, sacred sign or sym¬ 
 bol to remind us of a departed fellow-being, 
 and he will soon be forgotten : Cum sublatus 
 fuerit ab ocutis, cito etiam transit a mente. 
 “ When he is taken away from the sight, he is 
 quickly also out of mind,” says the author of 
 the Imitation of Christ . 
 
 Another motive actuating these Epicu¬ 
 reans was, to take away all sad and solemn 
 thought suggested so forcibly by tombstones, 
 in order that they might enjoy their illicit 
 pleasures without fear or remorse. In fine, 
 separate the church and cemetery, and you 
 disturb one of the most beautiful and use¬ 
 ful harmonies that religion could establish. 
 Within a small compass you had the three 
 churches united : the Church triumphant, the 
 Church militant, and the Church suffering. 
 What a touching lesson of fraternal charity! 
 Within the temple you find the Church of 
 heaven; that is, the living God amid His an¬ 
 gels and saints, really and truly present. At 
 the altar-steps you see the church on earth in 
 the crowds of prayerful worshipers; while 
 * within the shadow of the sacred edifice calmly 
 sleep the members of the church of purga¬ 
 tory; our parents, brothers, sisters, and neigh- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 29 
 
 bors; silently admonishing us of our duties, 
 or begging our prayers. 
 
 To rebuke the Church; to lessen, if not to 
 entirely extinguish, devotion for the dead ; to 
 blot out the remembrance of their own last end ; 
 to break the golden chains that bind together 
 the children of the Church on both sides of 
 the grave; such was the object which the 
 Voltairians of the last century hoped to ac¬ 
 complish by disturbing and removing the 
 homes of the dead. All the rest was merely 
 an excuse. But the civil authorities of the 
 times preferred falsehood to truth, especially 
 as it was hostile to Christianity. 
 
 In order to put its designs into practice, 
 the evil spirit lost no time in incorporating 
 its ideas into the law of the land After its 
 triumph in the French Revolution, it hastened 
 to enforce the following measures, contained 
 in the decree of the 23d of Prairial, year XII, 
 (June (2th, 1804:) 
 
 Article I. “ No interment shall take place 
 in any church, temple, synagogue, hospital, 
 chapel, nor any other inclosed building in 
 which citizens are accustomed to meet for di¬ 
 vine service; nor within the corporate limits 
 of any city or village.” 
 
 Article II. “ There will be provided, out- 
 
30 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 side of each city and village, at a stated dis¬ 
 tance from their corporate limits, a plot of 
 ground, devoted exclusively to the burial of 
 the dead.” 
 
 By these two flourishes of the pen the spirit 
 of paganism abolished the time-honored, wide¬ 
 spread, unquestioned, and perfectly harmless 
 custom established by the Catholic Church, 
 of keeping near herself her departed children, 
 that she might pray over their graves as she 
 had watched at their cradles. This custom 
 she could not revive without incurring severe 
 penalties; so stifling her indignation, and her 
 love for her children, and waiving her own 
 convenience and theirs, she was compelled to 
 submit under protest. Should she seek rare 
 exemptions, she must fall at the feet of the 
 politicians of the Revolution, who can refuse 
 or grant her prayer, as they please. 
 
 I will place before you, as a memorial of 
 this despotism toward the dead, the circular 
 addressed to the Bishops of France by one of 
 the ministers of Louis Philippe: “To his 
 Majesty belongs the sole right of granting, in 
 very rare cases, and under the most extraor¬ 
 dinary circumstances, an exemption from the 
 prohibition contained in the decree of the 23d 
 of Prairial, year XII. Thus it was that but 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 31 
 
 recently the remains of certain prelates were 
 interred in their cathedrals, by special per¬ 
 mission of the King. However, a recent 
 occurrence has been brought to my notice, 
 which would seem to indicate that, in some 
 localities, these prohibitory laws are not 
 known; and that the inhabitants consider 
 themselves at liberty to bury, as previous to 
 1790, in their churches. I notify you that if 
 such pretensions are made in your diocese, 
 and be acceded to, it will be considered a vio¬ 
 lation of the burial laws established with a 
 view to public health. I beg you, Monseign¬ 
 eur, to instruct the ecclesiastical institutions 
 and religious communities of your diocese 
 that, if this be repeated, the civil authority will 
 take steps to remove the remains to the pub¬ 
 lic burial place, and to impose upon the re¬ 
 sponsible party the penalty prescribed, name¬ 
 ly, a fine of not less than sixteen nor more 
 than fifty francs, and imprisonment for not 
 less than six days nor more than two months.” 
 
 Fearing that the bishops would not prove 
 docile enough, the same minister forwarded a 
 similar circular to the prefects, adding: “ The 
 town officers not having power to authorize 
 burials anywhere but in the public cemeteries 
 or private burial-plots, at the legally prescribed 
 
32 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 distance from the towns, will be held respon¬ 
 sible if they permit them to take place in the 
 churches. I request you to instruct them to 
 this effect, and to remind them of their re¬ 
 sponsibility.” 
 
 What was the result, my dear friend, of 
 this first campaign of modern impiety against 
 Christian sepulture ? 
 
 You have it in a few words. The Church, as 
 a perfect society, had enjoyed during the mid¬ 
 dle ages all the rights peculiar to a perfect 
 corporation. Of all her rights, the one least 
 questioned was her right to legislate in the 
 matter of burying her own children; that is, 
 the right of owning and governing her cem¬ 
 eteries. The demon of heathenism raises its 
 head, and “philosophers” come forth to call in 
 question every ecclesiastical right and privi- 
 dege. The Revolution confiscates them all, 
 enacts oppressive measures, and forces them 
 upon the Church. She submits to this new 
 outrage, hoping for a return of law and order. 
 Vain is the hope. 
 
 Infidel constitutions are framed and every¬ 
 where adopted. Freemasonry, now become 
 master of the situation in the large cities, 
 seeks to overthrow the supernatural order, 
 and, consequently, the destruction of conse- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 33 
 
 crated burying-grounds. It has lately de¬ 
 manded, in Paris, the still further removal of 
 the cemetery to a distance of thirty miles from 
 the capital; and to hasten the measure, it 
 hints at the early necessity of burning the 
 dead Parisians. 
 
 However, in this universal war of pagan¬ 
 ism against Christianity, the removal of the 
 cemeteries was, as you have already discov¬ 
 ered, only the first step. The second was to 
 get possession of them. The circular given 
 above supposes this seizure already accom¬ 
 plished, and is nothing more nor less than 
 the application of the first, seventh, ninth, 
 tenth, and eleventh articles of the Prairial de¬ 
 cree. Although in former times all ceme¬ 
 teries, with rare exceptions, belonged, in Cath¬ 
 olic counties, to ecclesiastical corporations, 
 the law declares to-day that all places of 
 burial belong to the civil power, that is, to the 
 politicians. It does not allow an ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal corporation even to acquire title to a piece 
 of land for burial purposes. Even in cases 
 where the civil power held title to a cemetery, 
 its government was always intrusted to the 
 Church; as were the questions of baptism, 
 marriage, and death. This was all changed 
 by the politicians of the Revolution. 
 
34 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Moreover, the right of ownership implies 
 the right to use and regulate : third and fourth 
 step in the revolutionary invasion. To the 
 mayor, then, or some other political office¬ 
 holder, of no religion, or who may be an athe¬ 
 ist, Jew, Protestant^ materialist, or a member 
 of the Society of the “ Solidaires,” belongs the 
 sacred right of keeping guard over the homes 
 of our departed brethren in Christ. He is to 
 appoint the hour of their funerals, and desig¬ 
 nate the spot where their bones may be laid. 
 Our pastors, the real and true fathers of their 
 flocks, must be silent and obey. All that is 
 left to them is the negative right to absent 
 themselves from the obsequies of a public sin¬ 
 ner who has died impenitent. But what scan¬ 
 dalous and violent vituperation has been 
 hurled against the clergy, who, availing them¬ 
 selves of this right, refused to sanction the 
 wickedness of sinners’ lives by being present 
 at their funerals! The revolutionary press 
 of France and Belgium have wasted more ink 
 and paper in their diatribes against the clergy 
 for refusing to assist at the funerals of public 
 sinners than would suffice to transcribe the 
 whole Summa of St. Thomas. 
 
 These seizures of Catholic cemeteries by 
 the civil authorities are founded on the first 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 
 
 35 
 
 and chief principle of the Revolution, namely, 
 complete and perfect equality of all religions, 
 true or false. 
 
 Previous to the triumph of pagan materi¬ 
 alism in 1790, Catholics, Jews, and Protestants 
 had their own respective places of burial; but 
 the revolutionary party, having inscribed 
 upon their banners and law-codes the prin¬ 
 ciple of liberty, and equality for all religions, 
 must logically establish one common cemetery 
 for the believing Catholic, for the denying Pro¬ 
 testant, and for the Jew who laughs at both. 
 
 Retaining, however, some very slight sense 
 of shame, the decree of Prairial, while permit¬ 
 ting but one cemetery for all classes, graciously 
 consented to have separate sections set apart 
 for the use of the different religions ; such sec¬ 
 tions to be separated by a ditch or hedge, and 
 each to enjoy a distinct entrance. 
 
 Hence, within one inclosure, you had sev¬ 
 eral distinct cemeteries; death keeping up the 
 religious separation that had existed during 
 life. When an unbeliever died impenitent, 
 his remains were interred in an unconsecrated 
 spot. This was tolerable. 
 
 These distinctions were distasteful to the 
 “ solidairesfor on the one side, the dread of 
 a dishonorable burial deterred many from join- 
 
36 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 ing their sect, or led them to forsake it just 
 before death. On the other hand, it was in 
 direct opposition to the latest theory of 
 “ solidairism,” that is, general and promis¬ 
 cuous mingling of good, bad, and indifferent 
 in death, as these “ solidaires” desire to have 
 also during life. 
 
 What did the Communistic town-officers of 
 Belgium do ? Availing themselves of their 
 power, they opened a campaign against the 
 custom of excluding impenitent reprobates 
 from any part of the cemetery, and went to 
 work and forcibly interred “ solidaires” in con¬ 
 secrated ground. This they did in Brussels 
 and in Gand. In this latter city, the town- 
 officer, on his own private authority, placed 
 the ancient consecrated cemetery under inter¬ 
 dict, and established a new one of his own. 
 In vain did the bishop protest. The town- 
 officer replied that, although burial was an 
 affair appertaining to the civil power, yet he 
 would graciously permit the ministers of all 
 denominations to perform their respective 
 rites at the graves; and called upon the bishop 
 to come and bless each grave at a time. The 
 bishops reply was, “You wish to compel the 
 Catholic clergy either to consecrate each grave 
 
 it 
 
 separately, or to consign the bodies of their 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 37 
 
 spiritual children to unhallowed soil. Catho¬ 
 lics can not shut their eyes to this open and 
 unwarranted violation of their rights and in¬ 
 sult to their faith. Your system deprives the 
 cemetery of its religious character, and treats 
 as a common field a place for which Catholics 
 have ever entertained feelings of reverence 
 and awe. It strips the burial rite of all its 
 spiritual meaning, deprives the faithful be¬ 
 liever of a comfort highly prized by him—that 
 of laying his bones in the midst of the house¬ 
 hold of the faith ; where, while awaiting the 
 day of resurrection, he .may enjoy the suffra¬ 
 ges of his church. 
 
 “ You are willing to permit us to bless the 
 graves separately. This is not freedom 
 enough for our ritual, and we will not accept 
 it. In pagan lands, and in regions where it is 
 impossible to have cemeteries, or to exercise 
 public'religious functions, the graves of de¬ 
 ceased Christians are sometimes thus blessed. 
 Even in Paris and other large towns, where 
 the interments in the cemeteries, of infidels, 
 Jews, heretics, criminals, and outlaws exceed 
 in great numbers those of the Catholics, this 
 custom is followed of blessing the single 
 graves. Except in these cases, the practice 
 is unknown. What is merely an exception 
 
3 § 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 to law and order and custom, you wish to 
 transform into a general and continued prac¬ 
 tice, sanctioned and required by the civil law. 
 If once admitted, there soon will not be a sin¬ 
 gle Catholic cemetery in the whole Church.” 
 
 You perceive, then, that it is the design of 
 the “ solidaires” to hasten the destruction of 
 Catholicity, by attacking it in one of its most 
 vital parts, that of Christian burial. Their at¬ 
 tempts have been partially successful, for very 
 many towns are now without any place for 
 Catholic burials. It is time for us to bestir 
 ourselves, and to raise our most decided and 
 energetic protests against this wholesale tram¬ 
 pling under foot of our ancient rights and 
 privileges. 
 
 Besides being denied the privilege of bury¬ 
 ing her children where she thinks proper, the 
 Church is not permitted to indicate the mode 
 nor yet the hour of their funerals, as you will 
 see by the following circular, bearing date the 
 fourth day of the month Fructidor, year XIII, 
 and addressed to the various prefects: “ I 
 transmit to you the decree of the fourth of 
 Fructidor, commanding the civil officers not to 
 allow the clergy, without special permission, 
 which permission they must be able and ready 
 to show, to go to the house of a deceased 
 
In the Nineteenth Century , 39 
 
 person, or to be present at any portion of the 
 obsequies, except shut up within the walls of 
 the church.” 
 
 These orders were rigorously enforced, and 
 to disobey them rendered the party liable 
 to fine and imprisonment. These were only 
 the preliminary attacks of the revolutionary 
 party. Their further invasions of our ceme¬ 
 teries will be seen in subsequent letters* 
 
THIRD LETTER. 
 
 Removal of Crosses from Dwellings—Destruction of 
 Crosses in the Cemeteries—Desecration of Graves— 
 Pagan Emblems and Inscriptions—Suppression of Cath¬ 
 olic Sepulture in Belgium—Potter’s Field—Aim of the 
 Revolutionary Party—Affairs in Belgium—Horror of 
 Catholics for the Political Charnel-House—Viola¬ 
 tion of their Liberties. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 What action was taken by the revolutionary 
 party when they had secured possession of 
 our cemeteries ? The action which they ever 
 take, when brought in conflict with religion: 
 to desecrate, ruin, and efface. In the peace¬ 
 ful times, when Christian influence prevailed 
 among the people and their rulers, you 
 could hardly have found in town or country, 
 a palace or a cottage whose roof was not sur¬ 
 mounted by a cross, or its front embellished 
 by a statue, picture, or pious emblem. For 
 graver reasons, the cross, the comforting sign 
 of our future resurrection, was invariably 
 planted as well on the lowly graves of the 
 poor as on the mausoleums of the rich. 
 
The Christian Cemetery. 41 
 
 Under the reign of pagan impiety, the 
 cross was turned into a weathercock, and the 
 statues of the saints gave place to lewd im¬ 
 ages of pagan divinities. The graves within 
 the churchyards of the large cities were so 
 completely dismantled that it would be im¬ 
 possible to say whether Christian or Jew, man 
 or beast lay beneath the heaving turf. 
 
 And even this sad privilege, now for the 
 first time heard of, of placing or of omitting 
 the sign of salvation on our graves, was not 
 long enjoyed. Soon we saw the enemy, in 
 a paroxysm of anti-Catholic hatred, pulling 
 down and shattering the crosses, breaking the 
 tombs, tearing open the coffins, plundering 
 them of valuables, and scattering the ashes of 
 the dead to the four winds. 
 
 Who does not shudder at the remembrance 
 of the sacrilegious profanations during the 
 revolution of 1793? Pagan antiquity never 
 witnessed, never would have tolerated, never 
 conceived such desecration. The sacred and 
 solemn precincts of the tomb were invaded, 
 and the leaden coffins dug up to be turned 
 into bullets. In the church of St. Denis, the 
 tombs of the French kings, objects of respect 
 and veneration for centuries, were reduced by 
 the pick and hammer in the hands of vandals, 
 
42 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 to a heap of unsightly rubbish. In their 
 pagan hatred of the dead, they allowed their 
 boys to play at foot-ball with the skulls of 
 kings. 
 
 The revolutionary spirit is the same to-day 
 as it was then. With the same implacable 
 and undying hatred of Christianity, it perse¬ 
 cutes it to the bitterest extremes in its ceme¬ 
 teries as in its churches. Thus in the month 
 of April, of the year 1873, a deputation from 
 the municipal government of Seville, coming 
 before the cemetery, forcibly wrested the key 
 from the hand of the reverend chaplain, 
 entered the sacred grounds, and took down 
 every Catholic image and emblem. They 
 then tore off every cross, even where it in¬ 
 volved gross mutilation of the handsome and 
 costly monuments. 
 
 Nor was pagan vandalism content with 
 destroying Christian ornaments. It polluted 
 the graves, by placing over them its own silly 
 emblems, and engraving upon the marble 
 ridiculous infidel inscriptions and devices. 
 On one side you meet Mercury, the god of 
 thieves, flourishing his rod ; in another place, 
 Death, with his menacing scythe; and again, 
 old Father Time and the inevitable hour¬ 
 glass. Here are broken columns, veiled urns, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century, 43 
 
 shafts, pillars, cones, and figures containing 
 devices emblematic of geographical or mathe¬ 
 matical research. Hideous owls stare at you 
 from the tracery on the headstone, a for¬ 
 midable cannon threatens you from a pedes¬ 
 tal, swallows make vain efforts to wing their 
 way to the skies on marble wings, while Cu¬ 
 pid, with inverted torch, hovers and presides 
 over all. These are but a few of the absurdi¬ 
 ties thrust into the sacred home of the Chris¬ 
 tian dead. 
 
 Here are a few of the countless inscriptions 
 in which nonsense and naturalism contend 
 for ridiculous supremacy: “ Here lie buried 
 all my hopes, all my joys, all my sweetest 
 comforts.” “ Adieu, obedient daughter, faith¬ 
 ful mother, kind sister, adieu: often will I 
 come to sit on this cold stone and dream 
 about you.” “To the memory of A, wife of B, 
 real-estate holder.” “To Isaurus, deceased 
 in the twenty-second year of his age. My 
 God, to die at twenty-two! too* soon ! What 
 have I done to die so young! I had not yet 
 learned to live ! No time to fulfill my destiny! 
 Who will care for my poor mother ?” Whilst 
 grieved at the utter absence of all Christian 
 sentiment, we are disgusted at the want of 
 common sense. Read these words, graven 
 
44 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 beneath a sculptured butterfly : “ Take thy 
 flight heavenward, and there dwell for all eter¬ 
 nity with thy family which has preceded thee.” 
 Decipher these if you can, and then admire 
 their depth and beauty of sentiment. 
 
 What will you think of this inscription, 
 placed over the grand entrance to a well- 
 known cemetery : “ Death is an Everlasting 
 Sleep ” ? Could Greek or Roman heathenism 
 be more scandalously, plainly, and openly 
 expressed, or a grosser insult be offered to our 
 sacred and solemn rite of Christian burial ? 
 
 Shocking as these profanations are, they 
 sink into insignificance when compared with 
 the appalling aims of the revolutionary party, 
 and the terrible means they employ to attain 
 them in France, Belgium, and elsewhere. 
 Catholics are not given to suspect dangerous 
 attacks from their fellow-men ; indeed, they 
 are too submissive, have too much respect for 
 law and order, and the powers that be; are 
 too willing when struck on one cheek, to 
 turn the other. They should be warned of 
 the danger, roused to a sense of their outraged 
 rights, and learn what they have to expect 
 from freemasonry, “ solidairism,” paganism, 
 and liberalism, as boldly taught in our godless 
 schools. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 45 
 
 The design of the enemy is to convert our 
 consecrated, cemetery into a vile pit of cor¬ 
 ruption. Later on, we shall see why. 
 
 Meanwhile, study the stratagems employed 
 to accomplish their ends. Witness what is 
 taking place to-day in one of the most im¬ 
 portant cities of Belgium. The mayor of 
 Gand, himself a freemason, has just sup¬ 
 pressed, on his own responsibility, and con¬ 
 trary to law and reason, a cemetery belonging 
 jointly to six Catholic parishes of the city, by 
 forbidding within them any further inter¬ 
 ments. “After the first of January, 1873,” 
 says the order, “ all interments from the six 
 parishes whose cemeteries have been expro¬ 
 priated, must be made in the common field 
 provided by the city government.” Observe 
 that our worthy mayor does not disturb the 
 graveyard of the Jews or Protestants, whilst 
 for that of the Catholics he substitutes a 
 common receptacle unhallowed by any bless¬ 
 ing, save such as a politician and freemason 
 can impart. 
 
 By virtue of his office and title of “ inspec¬ 
 tor of common receptacles for the dead,” this 
 man officiated at the opening of his common 
 sewer ; marching and countermarching during 
 a whole day, uttering his ejaculatory orisons. 
 
46 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 All who have the honor of his acquaintance 
 know from what liturgy these prayers are 
 taken. After having announced that the 
 sink was prepared, and that henceforth citizens 
 could bury free of expense, whomsoever and 
 whatsoever they would, he concluded his con¬ 
 secration by a violent diatribe against the 
 clergy. 
 
 This opening discourse was a fitting pre¬ 
 lude to the words of blasphemy that will come 
 from the foul-mouthed orators of the free- 
 thinking school when presiding at the civil 
 funerals of their fellow “ clods of dirt,” de¬ 
 ceased. In this vile place, with its political 
 or masonic blessing, baptized Catholics, whose 
 bodies have been the dwelling-place of the 
 Holy Lamb, whose members are still moist 
 with the consecrated oils of extreme unction, 
 are to be thrown, in indiscriminate confusion, 
 with outlaws, heretics, and infidels. 
 
 In order to give the sanction of law to 
 this promiscuous mixture, the mayor issued 
 a circular informing the keepers of the com¬ 
 mon field, that they were privileged to allow 
 any and all inscriptions to be placed upon the 
 tombs; from the De profundis, down to the 
 blasphemous motto, “ True peace of soul 
 consists in denying the existence of a God.” 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 47 
 
 The next thing is to supply matter to be 
 decomposed in his caldron; so his tax-paid 
 mourners are eager for a funeral, or, as they 
 would say, an opportunity of performing chem¬ 
 ical experiments on the rotting “ clods of dirt.” 
 On the last day of the year, just as the prohib¬ 
 itory act had closed the gates of the Catholic 
 cemetery, a good and respectable citizen died. 
 His had been the edifying death of. a Chris¬ 
 tian, and his last request was to be buried in 
 consecrated ground. But the next day the 
 politicians held the keys of the Catholic ceme¬ 
 tery, and the friends of the deceased learned, 
 with grief and indignation, that the gates were 
 closed against them. Notwithstanding the 
 cost and inconvenience, they resolved to carry 
 the remains of their departed brother to the 
 graveyard of a distant parish ; saying that if 
 it took their last cent, they would not have him 
 buried like a dog. The money was soon raised 
 to defray the expense of the unexpected jour¬ 
 ney, the hour was fixed, the cortege went to the 
 church. Meanwhile, “ The Common Inspec¬ 
 tor of Cemeteries” was preparing to officiate 
 as high-priest over the grave. When, after 
 the religious services were ended, the funeral 
 procession was seen to turn its back upon the 
 Potters Field, and go in another direction, 
 
4 8 
 
 The Christian Cemetery. 
 
 there was evinced a subdued but heartfelt sat¬ 
 isfaction on the part of the neighbors. Re¬ 
 strained by the sacredness of the occasion from 
 shouting applause, they uncovered their heads, 
 waved their hats in the air, and as a still fur¬ 
 ther protest against political graveyards, many 
 journeyed the whole distance to the Catholic 
 burial-ground. 
 
 This is all very melancholy, my dear friend. 
 Just to gratify the sentiments of hatred for re¬ 
 ligion, entertained by a handful of free-think¬ 
 ers, all our liberties are sacrificed, our con¬ 
 venience disregarded, and our family invaded 
 in its most holy relations, and in its most sol¬ 
 emn moments of affliction. 
 
 You ask, how long will this state of things 
 continue ? As long as the pagan demon of 
 liberalism shall hold sway, and that will be as 
 long as we keep up a system of pagan educa¬ 
 tion in our godless schools. 
 
 In the next, more about these invasions of 
 right. 
 
 i 
 
FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 Further Hostilities against Catholic Burial—Society to 
 make Funerals a Political Job—Exclusion of Catholics, 
 
 RICH AND POOR—A TOUCHING INCIDENT—SUBSCRIPTION TO¬ 
 WARD securing Christian Burial—Protest of the Bishop 
 of Gand—Insolent Reply of the Mayor—Protest of an 
 Eminent Magistrate—Eloquent Language of a Catholic. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 It is true that steps were immediately taken 
 to legalize these unauthorized proceedings 
 of the mayor of Gand, and a society was 
 formed in Brussels, having for its object to 
 secure the adoption, by law, of this principle 
 of secularizing sepulture, and of making its 
 practice general. This secularization would, 
 of course, lead to a general mixing up and 
 ignoring of all religions, or rather to a denial 
 of any religion at all; just what the party of 
 the revolution are seeking. The people of 
 Gand taking no pains to conceal their horror 
 for animal-burying, every thing is done to 
 stifle and stamp out this Christian feeling. 
 We hear constantly of the perpetration of 
 
50 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 acts of the most heartless cruelty to force 
 these people to consign their dead to the 
 Potter’s Field. It is labor lost. For the 
 people will resist, telling the bailiff, as they 
 do, “ If you are so fond of your common sink, 
 go bury yourself in it.” 
 
 While the wealthy can easily escape the 
 rayless gloom of heathen sepulture, by repair¬ 
 ing to the distant graveyards of the rural par¬ 
 ishes, the poor feel the whole weight of this 
 Communistic tyranny. This will always be 
 the case. In every war waged against religion, 
 the poor are ever the first to suffer. We 
 know of a thousand incidents each more 
 touching than the other, and all proving the 
 high appreciation that the masses of the 
 people have of the dignity and sacredness of 
 Christian burial. 
 
 A laborer, who had died in the hospital, had 
 begged that his body might be claimed after 
 death by his neighbors and given Christian 
 burial. Who is to pay ? The poor neighbors 
 raised the required amount by subscription 
 among themselves. Boundless examples of the 
 same kind might be adduced to show the un¬ 
 willingness of the people to be buried like cat¬ 
 tle, and associations are formed to procure, by 
 private subscription, as well as by appeals to 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 51 
 
 the public, the means necessary to enable the 
 poor to carry their dead to the distant churches 
 for Christian burial. 
 
 The Catholics of Belgium are doing still 
 more, for they are unceasing and fearless in 
 their resolute and decided protests against the 
 execrable tyranny of the “ solidaires.” I will 
 quote a few, for it is well to know how to speak 
 and act if the party of revolution should ever 
 gain the ascendency over us. 
 
 The Freemasons, becoming convinced that 
 their Catholic neighbors would not submit to 
 be thrown into a pit like dead cattle, demand¬ 
 ed that each grave should be separately blessed, 
 saying that this would settle at once and for¬ 
 ever all difficulties in the matter of sepulture ; 
 or, if any future misunderstanding arose, it 
 would come from the clergy, and they would 
 be held responsible. 
 
 Alas, the poor priests! If their rights are 
 trampled, if they are robbed and put to death, 
 they only get their deserts, for are they not 
 the cause of all our trouble ? So say now, 
 as pagans always said, the enemies of truth, 
 peace, and order. I am here reminded of an 
 anecdote, very a propos to these unfound¬ 
 ed charges. A sturdy citizen of Paris, fol¬ 
 lowed by his dog, was passing in front of a 
 
52 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 market where game was sold, and near the 
 door of which stood a cage containing live 
 rabbits awaiting their approaching fate. Just 
 then a rabbit protruded his nose between the 
 bars of his cage, and the dog making a sudden 
 snap, bit off a portion of the nose and ran 
 away. The store-keeper, startled by the cries 
 of the wounded animal, pursues the man, 
 seizes him, and demands payment for his 
 rabbit. On the indignant refusal of the citi¬ 
 zen, who had been totally unconscious of the 
 occurrence, the injured merchant threatens 
 an appeal to the police-court. “ Say, mister,” 
 said an urchin, “ let him arrest you. I saw how 
 it happened, and if you give me a few cents, I 
 will go witness.” “ What will you say ?” said 
 the citizen. “ I'll swear the rabbit began it!” 
 
 The Bishop of Gand, following in the foot¬ 
 steps of his illustrious predecessor, has been 
 pleased to reply to the insolent suggestion of 
 the “ solidaires,” to have each grave blessed 
 as it is about to be occupied. His words are 
 those of an intelligent man who knows his 
 place, and is calmly conscious of his rights 
 and duties, and who knows how a bishop 
 ought to speak and act. In his communica- 
 cation to the mayor, he writes : “ It would 
 now seem that your resolution is taken not to 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 53 
 
 seek the blessing of the Church for your new 
 burial-ground. Hence it will not be estab¬ 
 lished in conformity with the statute of the 
 twenty-third of Prairial, nor be such as the 
 Catholics enjoy throughout Belgium, France, 
 and other countries, except a few localities 
 where, owing to extraordinary circumstances, 
 a blessing could not be given. Can we not 
 come to some agreement in the matter ? You 
 propose a separate blessing at each grave. 
 This, you must be aware, I can not grant. I 
 am not at liberty to act contrary to what the 
 discipline of the Church prescribes, nor to dis¬ 
 pense with a general law. To do so, would 
 be to transcend my powers as bishop in a 
 case where the Pope alone has power of dis¬ 
 pensing. 
 
 “ The matter can be settled between our¬ 
 selves. Request and permit me to bless one 
 portion of the new cemetery for the exclusive 
 use of Catholics. ... By seeking this 
 blessing, you will remove all difficulty, and 
 afford unspeakable satisfaction to the inhabit¬ 
 ants of Gand generally, with the exception of 
 a few whom nothing would satisfy.” 
 
 To this generous, condescending, and mod¬ 
 est communication the haughty mayor re¬ 
 turned an absolute refusal. What else could 
 
54 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 we expect? In all countries, the self-styled 
 apostles of liberty, once they obtain power, 
 become ruthless despots. 
 
 The following protest, from an eminent 
 magistrate, met with the same fate as that of 
 the bishop. “ Apart from the matter of hy¬ 
 giene, and the respect due to the memory 
 of the dead,” writes a judge of the Court of 
 Appeals in Brussels, “ the sepulture of men, 
 the conditions, manner, and form of such sep¬ 
 ulture are essential parts of worship. As re¬ 
 ligion affects man chiefly in his relations with 
 the life beyond the grave, he would be untrue 
 to his nature, if he kept silent in a question 
 occupying so important a place in his con¬ 
 cerns as the separation of the soul from the 
 body. There can be no worship, nor liberty 
 of worship in denominations, if they are de¬ 
 prived of full freedom in every thing regard¬ 
 ing doctrine, hierarchy, and discipline, nor un¬ 
 less they are themselves their own judges.” 
 
 To the appeal of reason, succeeds the cry of 
 an outraged conscience. You will be pleased 
 to hear, as I certainly was delighted, these 
 words coming from the eloquent lips of one of 
 those noble Christians who are an honor to 
 Belgium, and who, with God’s will, will be her 
 salvation. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 55 
 
 “ According to your offensive system of 
 burial laws, the Catholic funeral service is vir¬ 
 tually abolished. This is a flagrant violation 
 of liberty, and we therefore protest against it. 
 Obedient to your laws when they are not con¬ 
 trary to our honor, nor to our consciences as 
 Catholics, we raise our voices against an act of 
 tyrannical injustice whereby we are deprived 
 of a consecrated cemetery, and a funeral service 
 in conformity with our ancient liturgy, and 
 have violently forced upon us a common field 
 where we must consent to be buried like cattle 
 which have died of the plague. Nay, more, 
 you go further; for you grant full license to 
 your friends to come to these very graves, and 
 there insult our faith and blaspheme Christ. 
 This is what you call enlightened govern¬ 
 ment ! thus to reduce to an intolerable state 
 of slavery a population eminently religious. 
 
 “If there are to be found among us some 
 baboons, over-fond of consigning their highly 
 developed and fully evolved organizations to 
 a political grave-digger for interment, we find 
 no fault with their fanciful free-thinking. If 
 our worthy mayor wishes to be buried in the 
 Zoological Garden, and near the monkeys’ 
 cage, or perhaps would prefer to be stuffed 
 and placed in a glass case in the museum, he 
 
56 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 need not apprehend any opposition on the 
 part of the statute of Praii ial to interfere with 
 such grave eccentricity. 
 
 “ Do not force us to accept a system so 
 much at variance with the laws of the Catho¬ 
 lic Church, so opposed to faith, to our most 
 time-honored traditions, to our inmost affec¬ 
 tions. What you are now doing is not sim¬ 
 ply an injustice ; it is wicked and offensive ; it 
 is infamous, and must cry to heaven for ven¬ 
 geance. If you had to deal with a less obedi¬ 
 ent people than are the Catholics, you would 
 soon see public indignation giving a fitting 
 rebuke to your provoking measures by de¬ 
 plorable but natural violence. 
 
 “ Do not deceive yourselves, however. Al¬ 
 though we are not in favor of violence, nor 
 admirers of the ‘ uprising of the people,’ yet, 
 we are fully determined to defend our rights 
 by every peaceful and legitimate means. It 
 must not be said, that a hundred thousand 
 Catholics tamely submitted to a Jacobin’s ini¬ 
 quitous ukase. They must make a resolute 
 and united resistance. It is time that we 
 should cease to be patient, when patience be¬ 
 comes folly. We must drive the vampire of 
 ‘ solidairism’ from our midst, and take up arms 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 57 
 
 in defense of our fathers’ graves as well as of 
 our own. 
 
 “ Enjoy then, ‘ solidaires,’ your dismal fune¬ 
 rals ; but let us have the comfort of Christian 
 burial.” # 
 
 This, my dear friend, is the way to talk to 
 these people. Would that these words could 
 infuse courage into the hearts of all Catholics. 
 If their acts correspond to these words, the 
 victory is theirs. 
 
 * M. J. De Hemptine, dans le Bien Public, 25 Jan. 1873. 
 
 
FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 Extent of the War upon Catholic Sepulture—Appeal to 
 the Catholics—Demands of Modern Pagans—Demands 
 of the Catholics—Hostility to Catholic Sepulture in 
 Italy—Burials among the “Solidaires ”—Governments 
 
 PETITIONED TO BURN THE DEAD—REVIVAL OF PAGANISM— 
 
 Persecution in Switzerland— No Priests at Funerals. 
 
 My Dear Frederic : 
 
 Travelers, in their ascent of Mount Vesu¬ 
 vius, frequently meet with crevices in the 
 rocks, giving forth small volumes of heated 
 smoke. The Italian guides call them “ fuma- 
 role ,” and tell you that there is fire beneath the 
 smoking embers. We find these “ ftimarole” 
 throughout Belgium and France. Wherever 
 we turn our steps, we tread on these smoul¬ 
 dering embers, and see these small clouds of 
 smoke, betokening the existence of subter¬ 
 ranean fire ready to burst forth at any mo¬ 
 ment, with the fury of a volcano. The whole 
 army of the revolution has received the word 
 of command, “ Attack the cemeteries !” and it 
 is panting for action. 
 
The Christian Cemetery . 59 
 
 Let our bishops, priests, and laity be ready 
 to receive the enemy’s assault. Hitherto we 
 have been defending, in the open field, our 
 outer breastworks; namely, our religious, chari¬ 
 table, and educational institutions. The enemy 
 has taken them and is now battering at our 
 inner works, the cemeteries; and then will 
 come the assault upon our citadel, the churches 
 themselves. If we falter, all will be lost; for 
 Communism in the graveyard means com¬ 
 munism in the churches; that is to say, one 
 church for all kinds of worship, or rather abo¬ 
 lition of all worship. 
 
 The revolutionary party knows this result, 
 and is working to accomplish it. I have al¬ 
 ready told you that, hitherto, persons dying 
 out of the communion of the Church were 
 buried in Catholic cemeteries, but in a section 
 reserved for such cases. This is fair enough ; 
 inasmuch as persons whose choice it was to 
 separate themselves from Catholics while in 
 life, could hardly be over-anxious to be with 
 them in death. 
 
 Modern infidels do not take this view of 
 the matter. They call this distinction an in¬ 
 road on human liberty, an outrage to their 
 tender consciences, a wounding of their feel¬ 
 ings ; and they know it to be a rebuke to their 
 
6 o 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 odious theories. They must reform this abuse 
 at any price; and they are now at work striv¬ 
 ing to abolish what they call “ the reprobates’ 
 corner.” 
 
 Now, what do they want? I repeat that 
 they want to exclude from the cemetery every 
 Christian thought, all belief in positive religion, 
 all faith in immortality, all hope of resurrec¬ 
 tion. They want to humiliate and insult 
 their Catholic brethren, by placing heathenish 
 and masonic emblems side by side with our 
 crosses. They want to shock the feelings of 
 good men by uttering the impious blasphe¬ 
 mies contained in the burial service of the 
 “ solidaires.” 
 
 Now, this is what we do not want. We 
 will not have impious men to stand over our 
 fathers’ graves now, nor over our own in future; 
 and, whilst our bodies are awaiting the resur¬ 
 rection, to spew out, in their vile funeral dis¬ 
 courses, horrid blasphemy about “ the dark¬ 
 ness of the Gospel and to treat as “ vtilgar 
 errors ” the most sacred dogmas of our faith. 
 
 This, my dear, is the latest stage of the 
 campaign carried on by the pagans in Belgium, 
 that “ land of the free,” against Catholic sepul¬ 
 ture. Although a little in the rear, the revo¬ 
 lutionary armies of Switzerland, Italy, and 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 61 
 
 France, are marching, under similar orders, to 
 the same point of attack. In Italy, the ceme¬ 
 teries have already fallen into the hands of 
 the state authorities, and been placed in the 
 keeping of a municipal officer, who may be 
 an unbeliever, a “solidaire,” or a highly devel¬ 
 oped “ clod of dirt.” * All the customary sacri¬ 
 leges of course accompanied this seizure. 
 
 For example: no less than four civil inter¬ 
 ments have taken place in one town within a 
 few days ; and, in every instance, against the 
 wishes of the deceased, who had died Catho¬ 
 lics, and of the relatives who protested vigor¬ 
 ously, but in vain, against this violation of lib¬ 
 erty of conscience. 
 
 But this is not all. To wipe out all trace 
 of the Catholic cemetery, and to silence for¬ 
 ever its truthful and warning voice, Italian 
 liberals now cry out for the burning of the 
 dead. This is the logical consequence of 
 their education. True to their training, they 
 believe that pagan antiquity is the highest 
 and most perfect type of civilization. An¬ 
 cient Rome, the Rome of the Caesars, the 
 metropolis of the great republic, burnt her 
 dead. We must do the same, if we wish to 
 be considered fully civilized. 
 
 Thus it is, as our Holy Father, Pius IX., 
 
62 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 truly observed, the infidel party is leading 
 paganism back to Italy over every highway 
 and by-way. You are aware, my dear friend, 
 that an official request to have the dead 
 burned, was recently made in the Italian Par¬ 
 liament, assembled at Rome; and made by 
 a liberal physician, Maggiorani, himself a 
 Roman. Yet there are many who refuse to 
 admit the disastrous results of the study of the 
 ancient heathen classics. 
 
 How common an occurrence it is now* 
 since the Italian invasion, to meet these civil 
 funerals in the streets of Rome ! You remem¬ 
 ber, of course, the case of the wife of the radi¬ 
 cal journalist, Bottero. According to the 
 notices posted up on the street-corners, invit¬ 
 ing the “solidaires” to the funeral, “she died 
 as she had lived, a true patriot.” Her remains 
 were carted to the burial-ground, without any 
 emblem of religion, and infidel orations were 
 pronounced over the body, in presence of her 
 husband and children. In this manner, the 
 most ancient and hallowed cemeteries, contain¬ 
 ing the sacred ashes of the very first martyrs 
 of Christianity, are again and again defiled. 
 These scandalous excesses, unparalleled in 
 Christian history, are perpetrated by the lib¬ 
 erals in order to pollute the holy city, to de- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 63 
 
 fy in his imprisonment, the head and repre¬ 
 sentative of Catholicity, to deny the truth of 
 Christianity in its very stronghold, and to 
 prove that henceforth Communism is to be 
 king in Rome. 
 
 Ungodly and profane, or, as they call them, 
 civil burials, are common enough in Switzer¬ 
 land, that hot-bed of infidelity ; and yet the 
 liberals are not satisfied. Among the modes 
 of persecution, practiced for the last few 
 months in that country, is an effort to com¬ 
 pel Catholics, at all hazards, cost what it 
 may, to discontinue religious observances at 
 their funerals, and to bury their dead in the 
 common burial-ground. 
 
 The National Assembly of Berne, in its ses¬ 
 sion of the 12th of September, 1873, declared : 
 “ The state, with every thing appertaining 
 thereto, is under the jurisdiction of the civil 
 authorities. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is here¬ 
 by abolished. The right of providing and 
 regulating cemeteries belongs solely to the 
 civil authorities. Therefore the cantons will 
 provide suitable places of burial, which will be 
 accessible, at all times, to all persons deceased 
 within the corporate limits.” 
 
 Among the hardy mountaineers of Jura, 
 who for so many centuries enjoyed, in undis- 
 
64 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 turbed tranquillity, the practice of their faith, 
 religion has been reduced to a private worship. 
 No public ceremonies can be performed, the 
 church bells are silent, and the chant of the 
 choir has ceased. The priest is not permitted 
 to carry the blessed sacrament openly, even to 
 the dying. When a parishioner dies, his pas¬ 
 tor may proceed, in the garb of a private citi¬ 
 zen, to the house, and there read in subdued 
 voice the solemn prayers of the ritual; but he 
 must not accompany the funeral procession in 
 his official capacity. The liberal government 
 graciously permits him to celebrate a low 
 mass, but requires the closing prayers to be 
 said privately in the sacristy. Then the re¬ 
 mains of the Christian maiden, or of a pa¬ 
 rent, whom the priest has baptized, instruct¬ 
 ed, loved, and cherished in life; whose eye¬ 
 lids he has closed in death, are carried out 
 without priest, prayer, or cross, or any of the 
 ancient ceremonies to which these faithful 
 Catholics have been accustomed. The body 
 is lowered into the grave in silence; for the 
 church must not intrude herself before the 
 public gaze, to pronounce those last prayers, 
 so consoling to the living, and so useful to the 
 dead. 
 
 But the worst is to come. For modern 
 
65 
 
 In the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 paganism in that country has been bold 
 enough to demand, and strong enough to ob¬ 
 tain, an order for the expulsion of the clergy 
 from their parochial houses. Even now, we 
 see them seeking shelter in the private homes 
 of their flocks; and very soon we shall meet 
 them in their hurried departure from their 
 native land, exiled, hunted down, and hounded 
 into caves and forests, as in 1793. Once the 
 clergy are out of the way, the Jura will witness 
 grim and dismal funerals according to the 
 cheerless ritual of unbelief; the sacred homes 
 of her dead will be polluted, and liberalism 
 will shout for joy. 
 
 I will say nothing, my dear Frederic, about 
 your own Germany, much less of Prussia. 
 Berlin, the headquarters of Communism, inter¬ 
 nationalism, “ solidairism,” and paganism, will 
 soon witness the godless burials of those things 
 which they wickedly term “ Chemical com¬ 
 pounds in a state of dissolution.” 
 
 Why was France, too, drawn into the anti- 
 Christian movement? Why? Because, for¬ 
 getting her glorious mission, as a leader among 
 nations, she prostituted, to the service of im¬ 
 piety, her noble and powerful faculties. Like 
 many another nation, she presented the poi¬ 
 soned cup of paganism to the lips of her 
 
66 
 
 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 children, and they got drunk, and thus became 
 hostile or at least indifferent to Christianity. 
 She has repudiated the glories of her past his¬ 
 tory, driven Christ from her doors, and ad¬ 
 mitted the devil through the window. This 
 is the secret of her humiliation. 
 
 The following letters will show you the 
 workings of these deplorable pagan theories 
 in France. 
 
SIXTH LETTER. 
 
 Infidel Funerals in Paris and Versailles—Noble Conduct 
 of the Catholic Soldiers and Deputies—Groundless 
 Claims of the “Solidaires." 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 We have been admiring the achievements 
 of the anti-Christian army over the dead in 
 Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland: let 
 us now hear from France. 
 
 But twenty years ago, an unchristian burial 
 was a thing unknown amongst us. Now it 
 is an every-day affair, not only in Paris, but 
 throughout the provinces. Amongst the most 
 notorious and scandalous was that of “ Ste.- 
 Beuve,” who has been so lauded for his bare¬ 
 faced denial of the divinity of our Lord ; and 
 another, that of a young girl lately deceased 
 in St. Philip’s parish. In the latter case, the 
 death was thus shamefully announced in the 
 funeral invitation: “You are invited to the 
 
 funeral of Miss N-, who has just died in 
 
 the fourteenth year of her age, her virginity 
 
68 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 undefiled by religion.” There was lately 
 another of these dismal affairs in the Mont¬ 
 martre district; that of a teacher and female 
 apostle of materialism. She was followed to 
 the grave by three hundred “ no-God ” people, 
 dressed in white, with bouquets in their hands, 
 and her own husband had the bold, bad taste to 
 deliver an address over the grave, praising his 
 beloved wife for having chosen to die without 
 priest and without faith. Only a short time 
 ago, no less than six godless interments took 
 place in one day in the cemetery of Pere La- 
 chaise ; each one embellished by a blasphe¬ 
 mous harangue. The following choice lan¬ 
 guage was heard over the coffin of one woman : 
 “ Dear fellow-citizen, we thank thee, in the 
 name of our association, for the good example 
 thou hast given, by living and dying a free¬ 
 thinker, that is, a pronounced and bitter 
 enemy of the clergy and despotism.” Thus 
 one soulless clod addresses another. 
 
 Paris fashions must be followed. So you 
 may now witness, in most of our large cities, 
 similar bold and open exhibitions of impiety; 
 public protests against all religious belief, at 
 once shocking to the spectator, and degrading 
 to the liberals themselves. Proud of its rapid 
 advancement, encouraged by a forbearance of 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 69 
 
 which I will not venture to speak, liberalism 
 but lately had the insolence to claim from the 
 authorities public recognition at the funerals 
 of its adherents. Thank God, it received a 
 well-merited rebuke. 
 
 You have not yet forgotten what occurred 
 last June at Versailles. Posterity will be loth 
 to believe that among the legislators, intrusted 
 with the sacred duty of lifting France from 
 the degradation to which she had been brought 
 by anti-Christian, anti-social denials of truth, 
 any would be found perverse or blind enough 
 to demand the payment of official honors at 
 the funeral of a colleague who had died pro¬ 
 fessing doctrines subversive of religion and 
 society. You know of whom and of what I 
 speak. 
 
 A legislative member, named Brousses, after 
 having been all his life a libertine, died a 
 “ solidaire.” Those members of the legislature 
 who were of his way of thinking thought it a 
 favorable occasion to make a practical parade 
 of their theories. Having succeeded in ob¬ 
 taining the consent of the members to attend 
 the funeral, they hoped to force France her¬ 
 self, in the persons of her legislators and sol¬ 
 diers, to sanction their wretched and desolate 
 theories. They reckoned without their host 
 
70 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Although they had sent notices and invita¬ 
 tions without number, there were not more 
 than fifty persons at the place of meeting, ex¬ 
 clusive of thirty-five or forty “ representatives ” 
 of the people who came with much parade, 
 bearing their parliamentary insignia. 
 
 According to custom, the vice-president of 
 the Assembly, accompanied by two secretaries, 
 had repaired to the house of the deceased, 
 while two companies of cavalry, detailed to 
 do military honors, were stationed before the 
 door. But as soon as the members saw the 
 procession issue from the door, the corpse car¬ 
 ried by members of the “ solidaire,” and not 
 the least sign or mark of religion—nothing to 
 remind one of the departure of a soul—they 
 turned their backs upon this indecent exhibi¬ 
 tion of atheism, and withdrew. The military 
 officers immediately gave orders to their sol¬ 
 diers to follow the example; thus leaving 
 these misguided infidels to carry out their dis- 
 edifying demonstration by themselves. 
 
 On reaching the cemetery, one of their 
 number saw fit to insult the people’s faith, by 
 giving his own and the deceased brother’s views 
 on the animal whom they claim as their father; 
 assuring his hearers that they were nothing 
 more than a good breed of domesticated mon : 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 71 
 
 keys. To utter such expressions in the very 
 teeth of state officers, brought thither by offi¬ 
 cial etiquette, and of soldiers, whose duty re¬ 
 quired their presence, seemed to these self- 
 styled animals a very master-stroke of clever¬ 
 ness. It would be a semi-official contradiction 
 or negation of the Catholic faith and piety, 
 gloriously manifested in our present miracu¬ 
 lous pilgrimages. 
 
 You may well imagine, my dear Frederic, 
 that our free-thinkers were exasperated at 
 their failure. They could not conceal their 
 bitterness, and on the very next day, they 
 arraigned the legislative body on a charge of 
 infringement on the rights of conscience, and 
 of contempt for the law. But they had not 
 to wait long for an answer. It was proved as 
 clear as the noon-day sun, that no law had 
 been transgressed, either in spirit or letter, 
 and that liberty of conscience had nothing to 
 do with the question. To add to their com¬ 
 fort, a full expose was made of the odious 
 measures resorted to by these people, in 
 France and Belgium, to obtain subjects for 
 these beastly burials. 
 
 Two statutes of the first Empire were cited 
 by the infidels to prove that there had been a 
 violation of the laws. These enactments or- 
 
72 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 dain that public and official funeral honors 
 shall be conferred upon any member of the 
 Tribunal and Legislature, deceased in the dis¬ 
 charge of his duties; and that the body shall 
 be accompanied to the cemetery by the mili¬ 
 tary, who shall discharge a farewell salute over 
 the grave. 
 
 The defendants, whilst admitting the stat¬ 
 utes, required their adversaries to show, if they 
 could, that these honors were to be paid to 
 any persons, except those who had died, and 
 were to be buried according to the rites of 
 some religion. Now infidelity, instead of be¬ 
 ing a religion, is the denial of every religion. 
 Although the enactment was made on the 
 twenty-fourth day of Messidor, in the twelfth 
 year of the Republic, it never entered the mind 
 of any one, not even of Napoleon himself, 
 to decree honors to those who chose to be 
 buried like dogs. It would be unjust, nay, 
 monstrously so, to expose the feelings of the 
 Catholic legislators, and the dignity of the 
 military to the mercy of these infidels, who, 
 whenever one of their number should chose to 
 die as a brute, could exact the presence of their 
 respectable Catholic colleagues at their irrelig¬ 
 ious demonstrations. What! If one of these 
 free-thinkers, who maintains that he is an 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 73 
 
 ape, should take a notion to have his breth¬ 
 ren, the monkeys of the Zoological Gardens, 
 attend his funeral, must our brave soldiers es¬ 
 cort them as guard of honor ? 
 
 Disgracefully beaten on the ground of ille¬ 
 gality, the “solidaires” appealed to their rights 
 of conscience. Their adversaries replied; 
 “ You have no right to assume that you have 
 a conscience. You believe that all men, in¬ 
 cluding yourselves, are nothing but living 
 dirt, soulless creatures, with no higher destiny 
 than to gratify your appetites. You can not 
 have a conscience, for there is no conscience 
 in a heap of dirt. 
 
 “ But why seek to obtain honor and respect 
 for a mere clod of earth ? Why expect men 
 to bow before animals ? If you were consist¬ 
 ent, you would summon the members of your 
 fraternity around your death-bed, inform them 
 that you are only a decomposing piece of 
 matter, returning to its original elements ; that 
 all is over with you forever; that what people 
 call remembrance, is only a relic of ancient and 
 worn-out ideas about exploded immortality. 
 That there is no more a devotion for the dead 
 than there is for God. Tell them to go to 
 their business on the day of your death as on 
 any other day, only take care to give orders 
 
74 The Christian Ce 7 netery 
 
 that when the rubbish-cart passes, your body 
 shall be carried away with the other garbage 
 of the house.” 
 
 Such, my dear Frederic, ought to be the 
 language of a true and consistent materialist; 
 and if he do not act according to his own 
 views of death, he has no right to demand re¬ 
 spect for his opinions, nor to say a word about 
 conscience. He would not be a true materi¬ 
 alist, but only a sectarian, ready to insult the 
 conscience and faith of his fellow-man. He 
 deserves no respect, and can lay claim to no 
 freedom; to freedom of conscience less than 
 to any other. Not believing practically in his 
 own carcass theory, he must deserve only con¬ 
 tempt and extinction. 
 
 However, the more clearly we show that 
 mere matter has no conscience, and can not 
 have any, the more persistently do these soul¬ 
 less people clamor about freedom of conscience. 
 “Freedom of conscience!” That is their 
 watch-word and rallying-cry. How easy to 
 rout them on their own battle-ground! 
 
 They do not know the meaning of the 
 words, liberty of conscience. Indeed, in the 
 strict sense, it is a contradiction in terms, and 
 therefore false. There is nothing in man less 
 free than this conscience, or less independent 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 *7 z 
 
 /j 
 
 of his will or of his caprice. What is con¬ 
 science ? Conscience is an internal practical 
 judgment, prompted by God, whereby we de¬ 
 cide whether a thing is right or wrong, and 
 which we must necessarily obey. We can not 
 act contrary to its dictates without sinning. 
 We have no freedom of conscience in act, 
 word, or thought; it compels us to follow the 
 right. External acts are qualified by the inten¬ 
 tion. They are licit or illicit, meritorious or 
 criminal, according to the thought whence 
 they proceed. This interior faculty, this in¬ 
 ward light, man could no more create than he 
 could make the light of day which enlightens 
 our eyes. He sees it—can not shut it out from 
 his vision. For the eye of conscience is with¬ 
 out eyelids. It can not close its eyes, and 
 withdraw itself from the illuminating ray of 
 moral truth. 
 
 To be sure, man can abuse the organs and 
 faculties given to him by God. He may put 
 out his eyes, and thus leave himself in dark¬ 
 ness. But would this be liberty? Perhaps 
 it would be liberty of self-mutilation, or the 
 liberty of the suicide. Every effort made to 
 deprave conscience, to put out its eyes, is a 
 mutilation or moral suicide. We are not at 
 liberty to play with or abuse our conscience, 
 
j 6 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 but to preserve it in a sound, healthy condition 
 as it came from God—a condition which we 
 call a right conscience—conscientia recta — 
 and which we are never free to disobey. 
 
 
 
 
SEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 Good out of Evil—Discomfiture of the “ Solidaires”— 
 Words of General Du Barail—Traffic in Dead Bodies 
 —Notice of the Prefect of Lyons—Audacity of the 
 “ Solidaires”—Reflections. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 God has been pleased, in accordance with 
 the laws of divine wisdom governing the world, 
 to turn to good account this disgraceful ex¬ 
 hibition at Versailles. It became the occa¬ 
 sion of giving utterance, within the very halls 
 of the French legislature, to truly sublime 
 Christian sentiments. I would call your at¬ 
 tention to the noble declaration of General 
 Du Barail, Secretary of War. 
 
 A “solidaire” had charged him with viola¬ 
 tion of law in ordering the withdrawal of 
 the military from the funeral. “You pretend 
 to think,” he replied, with all the vigor of a 
 soldier, “ that this was a transgression of the 
 laws of my country, but I assert that it was a 
 vindication of those laws. Soldiers obey the 
 
78 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 army regulations. Now, the 374th regulation 
 of the military code directs that soldiers, de¬ 
 tailed for the purpose of rendering funeral 
 honors, shall proceed to the late dwelling of 
 the deceased, to escort the body first to the 
 church, and thence directly to the grave. By 
 the church all men understand a temple of , 
 religion. In no case could we permit our 
 soldiers to be identified with irreligious dem¬ 
 onstrations, or implicated in open acts of im¬ 
 piety. If you tear from the soldier’s bosom 
 the hopes of a better life, how can you ask 
 him to sacrifice his life on earth in defense of 
 yours ?” 
 
 At these words, the “solidaires” winced in 
 silence, but the loud and hearty applause of 
 the majority proved, to the general’s satisfac¬ 
 tion, that he had nobly and successfully vindi¬ 
 cated the honor of the army and the faith of 
 France. 
 
 But the account was not yet settled. These 
 loud-mouthed champions of liberty of con¬ 
 science were put to the blush before the eyes 
 of the civilized world, by seeing their odious 
 transactions dragged into the light of day. 
 This duty fell to the lot of the Minister of the 
 Interior. Furnished with many well-authen¬ 
 ticated facts, he proved that these people had 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 79 
 
 set up a new trade, and actually trafficked in 
 the poverty of their fellow-men, in order to get 
 material for their anti-religious exhibitions. 
 
 He assures us that the civil interments, 
 which took place in Lyons, were not from 
 choice on the part of the deceased or their 
 relatives, but were the work of organized so¬ 
 cieties, who, having money and political influ¬ 
 ence, had it in their power to repeat, several 
 times a day, these outrageous proceedings. 
 This organization is called the “Society of 
 Free-Thinkers.” They repudiate all relig¬ 
 ion, and pledge themselves to protect their 
 members, or all whom they can in any way 
 influence, against the interference of the clergy 
 in all affairs of body and soul. Members are 
 required to attend the funerals of their breth¬ 
 ren, or suffer a fine. During its triumphant 
 reign in Lyons, in the days of the Commune, 
 this fraternity had decreed a fine of fifty 
 francs upon any priest presuming to attend a 
 funeral.” 
 
 There can be no funeral without a corpse, 
 and notwithstanding their pretended numbers 
 and great influence, these fellows could not 
 induce many to accept them as their under¬ 
 takers. They therefore established a traffic in 
 the bodies of the poor. A host of facts can 
 
8o 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 be adduced to prove that a cruel and unprinci¬ 
 pled advantage was taken of the inability of 
 the poor to defray the cost of burial, and that 
 they yielded under strong pressure from the 
 “ solidaires.” At the four civil funerals which 
 took place in Lyons in one day, all the bodies 
 had been secured from the city alms house. 
 
 Now it is a widow, unable to protect her 
 husband’s remains; now an orphan, who can 
 not defend his fathers corpse ; and then some 
 divorced husband, who returns after his wife’s 
 death to allow and secure an interment accord¬ 
 ing to the civil custom. Even the bodies of 
 infants are made the occasion of infidel de¬ 
 monstrations. 
 
 Here is a very revolting case. A boy of 
 twelve, who had made his first communion, 
 died a few hours later, after a short sickness; 
 whereupon his unnatural father permitted the 
 society to bury his child, and to defray the 
 expense. More than four thousand persons, 
 headed by the mayor, his assistants, and sev¬ 
 eral other functionaries, took part in this 
 demonstration. Other instances might be 
 cited where young people, with the reluctant 
 consent of their impoverished parents, were 
 thus buried like animals, only a few hours after 
 having partaken of the Body and Blood of 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 81 
 
 Christ. The warden of the Lyons alms-house 
 asserts on oath that out of twenty-four who 
 had been buried from that institution by this 
 infidel society, twelve had expressed a desire 
 to receive the rites of their church before 
 death, and even protested against being buried 
 as animals by any anti-religious society. 
 
 The police commissioner of the same city 
 of Lyons has also stated, that, during the last 
 twenty months, he was called upon at least 
 a dozen times to interfere in cases where the 
 families of deceased parties were being con¬ 
 strained by these Free-Thinkers to have their 
 dead buried without any religious rite or cere¬ 
 mony. 
 
 The mode of proceeding was this. As 
 soon as these meddlesome infidels heard of a 
 death in a poor family, they would repair to 
 the proper departments of the city, get the per¬ 
 mits, order the grave and coffin, pay for every 
 thing, and then proceed to the apartments of 
 these poor people, and sometimes by bribery, 
 and sometimes by threats, get an unwilling 
 consent to inter the corpse after their own 
 fashion. In some cases, the relatives were 
 actually driven by these fellows from their own 
 homes, and had to appeal to the police for 
 protection, in their efforts to save the bodies 
 
82 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 of their nearest and dearest from what they 
 considered a horrible desecration. 
 
 Let “solidaires” now prate about freedom 
 of conscience. Is it freedom of conscience to 
 abuse the poverty of a dying fellow-creature, to 
 take advantage of family secrets, of an infant’s 
 helplessness, an orphan’s destitution, a widow’s 
 distress, and of the terror inspired by a bold 
 and powerful combination of unprincipled 
 men ? 
 
 They ought to be ashamed to pronounce 
 the word liberty; or rather, they ought to be 
 afraid—for they have no shame—lest the 
 word should stick in their throats and choke 
 them. 
 
 Our memories are not so poor as to make 
 us forget the exploits of the Communists, who 
 made it a crime punishable with death to 
 wear a cassock. Nor have we forgotten the 
 famous Cadet, and the premium he offered to 
 atheism during the Commune by issuing the 
 following notice : “ Any citizen who shall have 
 died without asking for a minister of religion, 
 will receive civil burial at the expense of the 
 corporation.” To put some limit to the 
 dreadfully demoralizing effect of this tempta¬ 
 tion thus presented to the poor, the new pre¬ 
 fect, as you know, issued the following: 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 *3 
 
 Article I. Every certificate of death pre¬ 
 sented to the city authorities of Lyons, must 
 be accompanied with a second certificate, 
 stating whether the body is to be interred with 
 or without the ministrations of some clergy¬ 
 man belonging to one or other of the re¬ 
 ligions recognized by the state... This second 
 certificate, bearing the applicants signature, 
 will be placed on record, as a guide in the ap¬ 
 plication of the regulations contained in the 
 following article. 
 
 “ Article II. Except in very rare cases, where 
 the mayor may decide, all burials unattended 
 by any religious rite must take place as fol¬ 
 lows: From the first of April to the thirtieth 
 of September at six o’clock in the morning; 
 and from the first of October to the thirty- 
 first of March, at seven o’clock a.m. The 
 rest of the day is reserved for religious fune¬ 
 rals. 
 
 “Article III. Funeral processions must fol¬ 
 low the least frequented streets, unless they 
 have a special permit from our office to pass 
 over a specified route.” 
 
 Our free-thinkers had hardly got through 
 gnashing their teeth at these orders, when 
 another quickly followed, limiting the atten¬ 
 dance at funerals to three hundred persons, 
 
84 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 and forbidding all meetings within the places 
 of burial. 
 
 But these restrictions imposed by the au¬ 
 thorities had not much effect on the liberals. 
 Although compelled to obey the regulations 
 of the street-cleaning department, requiring 
 all garbage to be removed from the streets be¬ 
 fore a certain hour in the morning, yet they 
 continued to make their unwholesome demon¬ 
 strations. As a reply to the prefect’s orders, 
 they buried a member of the free-thinkers’ 
 fraternity, aged eighteen months, another aged 
 two years and six months, and a third, who 
 was an old bachelor, aged thirty-six. This 
 last was to be a test case, in which they hoped 
 to bid defiance to the law limiting the atten¬ 
 dance. 
 
 But they reckoned without their host. For 
 when the cortege was formed and ready to 
 start, the officers of the law counted three 
 hundred, and then cut off the tail of the 
 procession. Do not imagine that they ac¬ 
 knowledged themselves conquered. By no 
 means. The restrictions of the authorities 
 only irritated them, and during the month of 
 July sixty beastly funerals were seen in the 
 streets of Lyons. “Solidaire” funerals, like 
 suicide, seem to become epidemic. Nothing 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 85 
 
 perhaps, we may say en passant, shows more 
 clearly the utility of our correspondence. 
 The horror which must thrill you, my dear 
 Frederic, as you read these lamentable de¬ 
 tails, will never equal the shame, grief, and 
 fear that I have experienced in writing them. 
 
 Throughout France, Belgium, and many 
 other countries, are to be found vast organi¬ 
 zations of men and women, who claim the 
 honor of being clods of dirt, and of proclaim¬ 
 ing all their neighbors to be similar soulless 
 clods; with the public press advocating their 
 views, professors expounding their doctrines, 
 legislators sustaining them, and encouraging 
 them to vomit out their abject theories in the 
 face of honest men. And this is where we 
 stand after eighteen centuries of Christianity. 
 Can optimists find any thing like this in past 
 ages ? 
 
EIGHTH LETTER. 
 
 .*V •’ j . \ ^ _ - •» 
 
 Genealogy of the “ Solidaires”—Man an Educated Be¬ 
 ing—Remarks of a Missionary Bishop— Two Systems of 
 Education, the Divine and the Satanic, Christian and 
 Pagan—The “Solidaires” taught by the Pagans— 
 Proofs— It is a Mistake to attribute the Rise of Ra¬ 
 tionalism to Protestantism—Proof—Something about 
 Luther. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 Whence have these people come who are 
 now endeavoring to make sepulture a public 
 teacher of materialism by transforming our 
 cemeteries into pits of corruption ? Who 
 ever begat these beings, holding and diffusing 
 opinions from which the most audacious 
 blushingly recoil and regret that they are hu¬ 
 man ? As a necessary step toward remedy¬ 
 ing the evil, we must first solve this question. 
 The solution is in the two following proposi¬ 
 tions : 
 
 First proposition : Education makes a man 
 what he is. Be he Catholic, Protestant, Jew, 
 Mohammedan, or heathen, he is what his 
 education made him: nothing more nor less. 
 
The Christian Cemetery. 87 
 
 «w 
 
 A few weeks ago, I had a visit from a Cana¬ 
 dian bishop who had been twelve years a mis¬ 
 sionary among the Indians. During his visit, 
 he remarked: “If my Flat Heads and Esqui¬ 
 maux had been born and brought up in 
 France, they would be Catholics. And if they 
 are not, it is because they did not receive a 
 Catholic education. If they are savages, they 
 owe it to their savage training. Say and do 
 as you will, a man is what his education makes 
 him.” Nothing is more certain. 
 
 Second proposition : Ever since the fall of 
 man, two systems of education—one good, the 
 other bad—have, side by side, accompanied 
 humanity, forming individuals and nations. 
 Which system has produced the evil of “ soli- 
 dairism” ? The Christian system ? Certainly 
 not, for a doctrine teaching that man is a 
 soulless heap of earth, the descendant of an 
 ape, a mere animal, can not be found in the 
 whole Christian system. On the contrary, 
 you know as well as I, that this and similar 
 absurd theories have ever been condemned by 
 Christian teaching. 
 
 “Atheism must then be the result of evil 
 or pagan education,” you say. Yes, neces¬ 
 sarily and logically it must. For we find their 
 doctrines more or less plainly taught in the 
 
88 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 4* 
 
 pagan authors. The Sophists of Greece and 
 Rome were apostles of doubt, and destroyers 
 of all ancient beliefs among men. Up to their 
 time, says an old writer, the traditions of 
 revelation existed in some form. 
 
 Now, these pagan authors have been for 
 centuries, and are to-day, the admired models 
 of youth, and of that class of youth who, 
 by their superior position, must necessarily 
 lead the opinions and fashion the minds of 
 men. Every body knows that “solidaire” 
 theories had not their origin among the lowly 
 and the unlettered. It came, and it is coming 
 to-day, from those who have drunk deeply of 
 the poisoned cup of pagan classical literature 
 —the graduates of educational institutions. 
 Previous to the study of these writers, none 
 of the deplorable evils that we now find every¬ 
 where, could be discovered in Europe. And 
 if there are infidels to-day among the unedu¬ 
 cated classes, they owe their paternity to 
 the educated, who, coming forth from their 
 schools, communicate what they have re¬ 
 ceived, and can transmit nothing else. Libra¬ 
 ries, the public press, the theatre, and litera¬ 
 ture, are their exclusive work, the development 
 of their classic ideas; each and all being so 
 many indefatigable agents of the criminal 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 89 
 
 apostolate. The people read them and are 
 poisoned; and this explains the mystery. 
 
 It is our duty, then, to combat a pernicious 
 system, favored, alas! even by Catholic educa¬ 
 tors. Most people blame Protestantism; im¬ 
 puting to Luther the rise of that rationalism 
 and “ solidairism ” now ravaging Christian na¬ 
 tions. Nothing could be more false. Noth- 
 ing could be more useless than their very 
 serious attacks directed exclusively against 
 Protestantism. 
 
 No one denies that Luther is responsible 
 for much of our modern unbelief. But it is 
 one thing to be the author of an evil and an¬ 
 other to be its propagator. We can not assert 
 it often enough, that Luther, the father of 
 Protestantism, did not beget rationalism. He 
 found it existing and applied it to the spiritual 
 
 order of things by setting his reason above the 
 
 % 
 
 authority of the Church. 
 
 The truth is: firstly, that Luther was just 
 what Leibnitz styled him, a “logical man.” 
 When he appeared upon the scene, atheism 
 had been reduced to a system, and free- 
 thought having been carried into Europe on 
 the poisonous breath of Greek, philosophy, 
 was a full-grown goddess. Fugitives from 
 Constantinople introduced her to the youth 
 
90 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 of Europe, and soon she counted innumerable 
 admiring followers in all countries, but espe¬ 
 cially in Italy. Volumes of history might be 
 cited in evidence of this fact; but I will con¬ 
 fine myself to the testimony of two or three 
 undoubted witnesses. 
 
 Thomasius, an ancient Protestant writer, 
 in giving the pedigree of the rationalists 
 or atheists, uses the following striking ex¬ 
 pressions: “History proves a strange fact; 
 namely, that, from the time of the overthrow 
 of paganism by Christianity, no atheists were 
 found in Europe, till we meet them in the 
 fifteenth century. On its return to Europe, 
 ancient paganism produces evil results; for 
 we see atheism springing into existence, and 
 then the establishment of a vast school of in¬ 
 fidelity in Italy, the very focus of Catholicity. 
 Its founders, professors, and disciples being 
 men imbued with a love for beautiful antiquity, 
 revived ancient errors, banished lonof before 
 by the power of the Gospel.” 
 
 Spizelius, another Protestant, who wrote 
 before Thomasius, testifies to the same facts. 
 “ Who can deny,” says he, “ but that the re¬ 
 vival of pagan literature in Italy, in the fif¬ 
 teenth century, brought out, cultivated, and 
 developed the ancient theories of Lucretius, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 91 
 
 Epicurus, Horace, and others ? It was then 
 that a great number of teachers administered 
 draughts of poison to the young, under the 
 name of ancient classical literature.” 
 
 Bayle, too, attributes the rise of rational¬ 
 ism to the same cause. “ Atheism,” he says, 
 “ was unknown in France until during the 
 reign of Francis I.; while in Italy it broke 
 out during the revival of the classics.” He 
 repeats, “ I find no atheists in France prior 
 to the time of Francis I., nor in Italy till after 
 the final capture of Constantinople, when 
 Argyropulus, Theodorus of Gaza, George of 
 Trebizonde, with other learned men of Greece, 
 took up their abode with the Duke of Flor¬ 
 ence. It is quite certain that the learned lit¬ 
 erary writers, who flourished in Italy at the 
 revival of the belles lettres, subsequent to 
 the taking of Constantinople, had little or no 
 religion.”* 
 
 It is not to be denied that Futher, like his 
 precursors, the rationalists of Italy, owed his 
 apostasy to his insane fondness for the pagan 
 classics. Hear the testimony of his biogra¬ 
 pher and beloved disciple, Melancthon : “ Fu- 
 ther’s soul, in its thirst for knowledge, drank 
 
 * Diction, art. Takiddin. 
 
9 2 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 irom the best and most abundant sources. 
 He read most of the ancient authors, not as a 
 child to learn a language, but to acquire a 
 knowledge and standard of human life.”* 
 Indeed, such was his infatuation in this re¬ 
 gard, that these profane authors became his 
 inseparable companions; for even when em¬ 
 bracing the monastic state, he secretly and 
 clandestinely carried with him into his con¬ 
 vent copies of Plautus and Virgil.f His 
 peculiar education had taught him to look 
 upon such authors as very treasures. And he 
 knew no other; for he tells us himself that at 
 the age of twenty he had not read a single 
 line in the Holy Scriptures. And was he 
 any worse. than most of our young college 
 students, brought up like himself by Christian 
 teachers, but fed upon pagan literature • till 
 their empty heads become intoxicated with 
 the charms of heathenism ? 
 
 For him, as for many others, paganism ef¬ 
 fected his ruin. Christian literature, Christian 
 theology, and Christian philosophy, being de¬ 
 void of the beauties of classical antiquity, 
 were in his estimation simply barbarous. 
 
 * Vita Lutheri. Melancthon, tom. ii. 
 \ Melancthon, ibid. p. 6. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 93 
 
 “ Moreover,” says Brucker, “ he directed all his 
 energy, not only to the disparagement of 
 scholastic philosophy, but to its utter banish¬ 
 ment from the schools. There is no doubt 
 but this hostility arose from the same cause 
 as that of the literary people of Italy, who, 
 blinded by their love of pagan classical learn¬ 
 ing, became unfitted to wear the yoke of 
 scholastic philosophy. Thus Luther, having 
 spent the years of his youth in closely follow¬ 
 ing these ancient authors, affected to be 
 shocked at the rudeness of modern litera¬ 
 ture”* 
 
 Although this ought to be testimony 
 enough, I will summon as a still better wit¬ 
 ness, Luther himself, who, in a private and con¬ 
 fidential letter, thus speaks his mind: “ After 
 full deliberation, I have come to the conclu¬ 
 sion that it is simply impossible to reform the 
 Church, without first completely abolishing 
 canon law, the decretals, scholastic theology, 
 logic, and philosophy, as we now have them, 
 and building all over again on new foun¬ 
 dations.” It is, as you see, ever the same 
 story. Pagan antiquity had become the 
 model for every thing good and beautiful. 
 
 * Hist. Phil. lib. iii. 
 
94 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 But the Church, not knowing these schools, 
 and even having refused to recognize their 
 claims, was looked upon as sunken in igno¬ 
 rant barbarism. A church steeped in bar¬ 
 barism deserves no respect—can not be the 
 true church. It becomes our duty, therefore, 
 to destroy it if we can. “ How can you ex¬ 
 pect me,” says Luther to Reuchlin, “ to believe 
 an assertion coming from the rude tongue or 
 pen of a vulgar fellow who is unable to decline 
 musa ?’ Such was the reasoning of every 
 pupil of the pagan schools, in matters of re¬ 
 ligion, politics, literature, architecture, etc.; 
 and in order to remodel the Christian world 
 in a pagan mould, they kindled a revolution 
 the flame of which carried wide-spread deso¬ 
 lation. 
 
 This question will be further considered in 
 the following letter. 
 
Further Evidence that Rationalists and “ Solidaires” are 
 the Result of Pagan Literature, and not of Protes¬ 
 tantism—Remedy for the Evil. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 We have now come to the critical moment 
 in Luthers life. The fire of paganism which 
 has been long burning in his breast will now 
 burst forth, and we shall see this pupil of the 
 heathen masters open his batteries against the 
 Church, and shake it to its very foundations, 
 in order, forsooth, to rebuild it after his pet 
 model of ancient perfection. It was much in 
 the same way, too, that the revolutionists of 
 1793 made their attacks upon society, wishing 
 to build upon its ruins a system fashioned 
 after the same model of pagan antiquity. 
 
 Hear the biographers of our renegade 
 monk of Wittenberg. “ Luther,” they write, 
 “having been thoroughly drilled in the an¬ 
 cient pagan systems, became convinced that 
 scholastic philosophy and theology were the 
 
9 6 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 source of every error and evil in the Church. 
 He determined, therefore, to leave nothing 
 undone to overturn these systems. Fully ap¬ 
 prised of the vastness of his undertaking, as 
 well as of the risk he ran, he hesitates for a 
 moment. But looking up to the great and 
 glorious scholars in Italy, who had already 
 opened a gap in the enemy’s defenses, he re¬ 
 ceives new courage and confidence, and at 
 once opens the attack.” 
 
 Amid minds already predisposed for the 
 change by those apostles and admirers of an¬ 
 cient paganism, the men of letters, reform in 
 Germany spread like a prairie fire. Brucker 
 tells us that it owed much of its success to 
 Catholic “ litterateurs among the rest to 
 Erasmus, Vives, and Nizolius. All that was 
 wanting was a bold hand to apply the torch. 
 This bold and reckless hand was Luther’s. 
 
 I do not think, my dear Frederic, that you 
 can find a clearer and truer account of the 
 origin of Protestantism. You have here the 
 cause and the occasion. The cause was the 
 love of ancient pagan civilization; the occa¬ 
 sion was the example of men of letters in Italy 
 and Germany. 
 
 It is a well-established fact* of history that 
 these literary men, while claiming to be Cath- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 97 
 
 olics, had, long before Luthers time, openly 
 professed and taught such monstrous tenets 
 derived from pagan writers, that Luther him¬ 
 self never dared to countenance them; for 
 example, pantheism and materialism. The 
 Council of Lateran, held in 1512, five years 
 before Luther published his theses, was obliged 
 to condemn these systems, taken from the 
 ancient Greeks, and to declare the principles 
 of the new philosophy and the revived litera¬ 
 ture to be poisonous ancf unsound, “ radi¬ 
 ces philosophise et poesos esse infectas.” 
 Erasmus, the chief patriarch of the revival of 
 ancient literature, confirms the testimony of 
 Melancthon and other historians, by his brief 
 but expressive remark, “ I laid the egg, and 
 Luther hatched it.” The Protestants of the 
 seventeenth century, speaking through the 
 mouth of minister Jurieu, corroborate the 
 testimony of Erasmus; for they tell us confi¬ 
 dently, ' Were it not for the revival of pagan 
 literature, we would not be in existence.” In 
 fine, the revolutionists, rationalists, and ma- 
 terialists of our day boast of their descent 
 from the “ Renaissance.” “ We are children 
 of the revolution,” say they, “and we are 
 proud of it; but we are still more the child¬ 
 ren of the 1 Renaissance.’ ” 
 
98 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 It is a fact, my dear Frederic, that the 
 rationalists of every sect are unanimous in 
 their praise of this period of revival, which 
 they call “ the emancipation of thought.” As 
 Brucker has it, “ The study of the ancient clas¬ 
 sics severed the chain which held reason sub¬ 
 ject to faith, and bound philosophy to author¬ 
 ity.” It is natural to suppose that these peo¬ 
 ple know where they came from, and they 
 unanimously hail Florence in Italy as the 
 birthplace of their so-called “glorious revolu¬ 
 tion. 
 
 How deeply to be deplored is the blindness 
 of all those respectable and good men who, 
 instead of taking the rationalists’ declaration 
 regarding their primary cause, and setting to 
 work to tear out the poisoned tree by the 
 roots, only hack away at its branches ! The 
 enemy laughs at such tactics. Notwithstand¬ 
 ing your eloquent and learned defenses, the 
 torrent of rationalism carries them away, and 
 is now overflowing both Catholic and Protes¬ 
 tant lands. If you would prevent destruction, 
 you must ascend to the source of the stream 
 and dry up its springs. Its fountains, as 
 you know are the ancient classical authors. 
 Unless the study of these men is discontinued 
 in our colleges, labor as you may to stop it, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 99 
 
 you will have an unfailing crop of materialists 
 and “ solidaires,” calling themselves animals, 
 living like animals, dying like animals, and 
 insisting upon being buried like animals. 
 
 Meanwhile, these infidels are rapidly reduc¬ 
 ing their theories to practice. Unable to act 
 in their individual capacity, they have formed 
 societies the better to apply their atheistic 
 doctrines to the affairs of practical life. Hence 
 you have Freemasons, free-thinkers, mate¬ 
 rialists, positivists, “solidaires,” and, to crown 
 all, the logical and consistent animal. 
 
 These gloomy associations are so many 
 regiments in the grand army of evil, which, 
 if not checked in its advances by the hand 
 of God, will invade and destroy the most 
 sacred institutions of society. 
 
 Here again, my dear friend, if you will take 
 the trouble to examine, you will find that the 
 founder, organizer, and director of each and 
 every one of these associations, is not a man 
 from the uneducated classes, but in all cases 
 a man of some learning. The remedy, then, 
 is not to be found in a prefect’s proclamation, 
 or in the censure of a legislative body, but in 
 the total suppression of pagan education, and 
 the substitution of a thoroughly and truly 
 Christian training of the youthful mind. Un- 
 
ioo The Christian Cemetery 
 
 til this change takes place, we are only throw¬ 
 ing chaff before the wind. While the revo¬ 
 lutionists will laugh at our efforts, sensible 
 men will repeat the truthful remarks of a 
 Protestant of our own time: “ It will fill pos¬ 
 terity with astonishment to learn from history 
 that an age calling itself Christian, con¬ 
 demned its youth, during seven or eight years 
 of the most impressionable period of their 
 lives, to the almost exclusive study of the 
 pagans.”* 
 
 We know, my dear Frederic, whence the 
 “solidaires” have come. But where are they 
 going ? What is their object ? In a word, 
 what is the cause of their hatred and opposi¬ 
 tion to Christian sepulture ? The reply is on 
 the tip of my pen. 
 
 Christian burial in a Christian sepulchre 
 annoys them. Why does it annoy them ? 
 Because it is an eloquent and fearless preacher 
 of doctrines opposed to theirs. Wherever the 
 cemetery-cross stands, surrounded by Chris¬ 
 tian graves, there you have a popular, elo¬ 
 quent, and impartial expounder of truths, 
 raising its voice night and day, in town, vil¬ 
 lage, and country, against the pernicious views 
 
 * De Gasparin, Int6rets gen6r. du Protest. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. ioi 
 
 of those who insist upon throwing human gar¬ 
 bage into the sewers of a “ solidaire.” 
 
 These disgraceful sectarians, having sunk 
 lower than the heathen of old, lower than the 
 savage of our time, ay, and lower than the 
 brute, claim that man is only a mass of rub- - 
 bish ; that the soul is a myth, and resurrection 
 a fiction. The effect of such theories would 
 be to free man from all responsibility; to make 
 no difference between virtue and vice, 'and to 
 set up the law of the strongest, as the only law 
 in force among the herd of wolves called the 
 human race. Nothing has ever been known 
 more radically destructive of religion, and, of 
 course, of society, than these dreadful theories. 
 Now, the Christian cemetery preaches four 
 truths diametrically opposed to them—name¬ 
 ly, the dignity and sanctity of the human 
 body; the grand law of universal and eter¬ 
 nal brotherhood ; the immortality of the soul ; 
 the resurrection of the flesh. 
 
 While St. Bernard, St. Chrysostom, Bos- 
 suet, and the other grand and mighty orators 
 of the Church can only announce the sublime 
 truths of religion, one at a time, the cemetery 
 proclaims them all in one voice, in a language 
 that all can read, and in tones that penetrate 
 into every part of Christendom. Now you 
 
102 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 perceive how well founded are the opposition 
 and hatred of impious men. 
 
 The cemetery proclaims the dignity and sanc¬ 
 tity of the human body . The patriarch Moses, 
 while in charge of the flocks belonging to his 
 father-in-law, Jethro, had penetrated one day 
 into a remote part of the desert, near Mount 
 Horeb, when suddenly he perceived, at some 
 distance from him, a bush all enveloped in 
 flames, and yet not consumed. Wishing to 
 examine more closely this strange phenome¬ 
 non, he was about to advance toward it, when 
 he heard a voice issuing from the flames, 
 saying, “ Come not nigh hither. Put off the 
 shoes from thy feet: for the place whereon 
 thou standest is holy ground.” Locus enim , 
 in quo stas , terra sancta est. (Exodus 3:5.) 
 
 The same voice speaks to us from the cem¬ 
 etery, Approach with reverence, for I am holy 
 ground. The Church, by her blessing, pray¬ 
 ers, and sprinkling of holy-water, has with¬ 
 drawn me from the common earth, and re¬ 
 leased me from the baneful power of the devil, 
 that arch-corrupter of both our physical and 
 moral nature. She has restored me to my na¬ 
 tive liberty and purity, in order to make me a 
 receptacle, a consecrated reliquary designed 
 to receive and preserve something holy. Not 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . J03 
 
 for my own sake have I been purified, blessed, 
 and sanctified; but out of regard for the 
 human bodies that will repose within my 
 bosom. 
 
 If we wish, my dear Frederic, to have some 
 idea of the sanctity of our bodies, we may get 
 it from the magnificence of the ceremonies 
 and prayers used by the Church, in her ardent 
 desire to make our graves in some way corre¬ 
 spond to that dignity and sanctity. 
 
 The explanation of this page of Catholic 
 Liturgy, so little known to men, will be the 
 subject of our next letter. 
 
 f 
 
 
TENTH LETTER. 
 
 Only Bishops can consecrate Cemeteries—The Five Crosses 
 and Fifteen Candles explained—Beauty of the Pray¬ 
 ers used—Elevated Ideas of the Cemetery—Dignity 
 of the Human Body—Power of Evil Spirits over the 
 Dead—Examples, Explanation, and Defense of Chris¬ 
 tian Practices. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 I invite you now to accompany me to the 
 consecration of a cemetery, and while on our 
 way, I will tell you what few persons are aware 
 of—namely, that the consecration of a ceme¬ 
 tery is a function reserved exclusively to bish¬ 
 ops. This fact alone will give you some idea 
 of the sacredness of the place to which we are 
 going. But lo! see! What a mysterious 
 spectacle ! In each of the four corners of the 
 field stands a cross about five feet in height, 
 whilst in the centre we see another much 
 higher. In front of each of these five crosses 
 is planted a stand of less height, and having on 
 its top three sharp points to hold three can¬ 
 dles. The crosses and stands were erected but 
 
The Christian Cemetery . 105 
 
 yesterday; for only one night is permitted to 
 intervene between their erection and the 
 august ceremony we are now about to witness. 
 Two vessels, a large one filled with water, and 
 a smaller one containing salt, are set at the foot 
 of the central cross. 
 
 I know what thoughts are running now 
 through your mind, my dear Frederic, as well 
 as through the mind of many another specta¬ 
 tor. What is all this preparation ? What do 
 these things mean ? I will tell you. These 
 lifeless wooden stands, resembling the dryness 
 of fleshless bones, represent man in his grave. 
 They were set up yesterday, for yesterday is 
 a figure of fleeting time; and in every corner 
 of the cemetery, to remind us that the empire 
 of death is spread all over the earth. 
 
 The three candles not yet lighted represent 
 the imperishable germ of life placed in our 
 bodies, by the three persons of the Blessed 
 Trinity. Soon, at the direction of the bishop, 
 these candles will be lighted, and I will give 
 the mysterious signification of their light 
 
 The cross in the centre of the field is higher 
 than the others, and represents our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who, having vanquished death, has been 
 made for us the resurrection and the life. He 
 is the first-born among the dead, casting His 
 
io6 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 protecting and saving shadow over His sleep¬ 
 ing children. 
 
 This mysterious cross set up in the middle 
 of the ground proclaims that the Divine Word, 
 by whom all was made, and all was saved, is 
 the centre of all things, the King of heaven and 
 earth, with an empire stronger than that of 
 death, and extending over the past and the 
 future, the living and the dead. 
 
 From their places in the four extremities of 
 the field, the four lesser crosses proclaim that 
 the life-giving blood of Calvary has flowed to 
 the four quarters of the globe, to bring life 
 on the day of resurrection to all men, no 
 matter in what age or clime they may have 
 died. This is the reason why the wooden 
 stands, figures of the dead, are placed before 
 the crosses representing the resurrection and 
 life. 
 
 The candles are lively representations ot 
 the general resurrection. When a fire is ex¬ 
 tinguished, we say it is lifeless, but alive 
 when rekindled. If, then, these extinguished 
 candles reminded you, as they did me, of a 
 dead man, when we shall see them burning, 
 we shall see in spirit the man restored to life. 
 This is the mystery of which I promised to 
 give you the consoling explanation. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 107 
 
 The water and salt at the foot of the cross 
 are to be blessed by the bishop, in order to 
 become holy-water—that powerful element of 
 sanctification. 
 
 Now that you know the meaning of the 
 several objects before you, I ask you, if our 
 holy mother, the Church, the great teacher of 
 men, could find more suitable and comprehen¬ 
 sive language wherein to proclaim to us such 
 magnificent truths ? If it is true that man, 
 whether rich or poor, young or old, is not a 
 pure spirit, and consequently needs, as the 
 Council of Trent says, the assistance of sensi¬ 
 ble things to raise him up to the comprehen¬ 
 sion of spiritual things, let the great philoso¬ 
 phers who despise our august ceremonies find 
 a more effective means of making us under¬ 
 stand truths that are beyond the reach of our 
 senses. As for myself, filled with gratitude 
 and wonder, I will ever repeat St. Teresa’s 
 saying, “ I would lose my head for the smallest 
 ceremony of the Church.” 
 
 More beautiful and more eloquent still, if 
 possible, are the prayers used at the consecra¬ 
 tion of the cemetery. Let us recall a few of 
 them. 
 
 Here comes the bishop, preceded by the 
 clergy. He is vested with cope and mitre, 
 
io8 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 and bears his crosier in his left hand. As he 
 advances, all the candles are lighted, as in an¬ 
 ticipation of the resurrection, the certainty of 
 which he is to proclaim from this very strong¬ 
 hold of death. After a short address to the 
 people on the sacredness of the Christian 
 cemetery, he begs of God, in a touching 
 prayer, that the bodies of all those here bur¬ 
 ied, may, on the great day of judgment, arise 
 glorious from the tomb, be reunited to their 
 souls, and admitted to the never-ending joy of 
 heaven. 
 
 Having finished this prayer, the bishop, 
 clergy, and people kneel down and recite to¬ 
 gether the litany of the Saints, begging their 
 cooperation in obtaining the object petitioned 
 for. Toward the last verse, the bishop arises, 
 and making the sign of the cross three times, 
 says, “ That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to puri¬ 
 fy and bless this cemetery, we beseech Thee 
 to hear us : that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to 
 purify, bless, and sanctify this cemetery, we 
 beseech Thee to hear us : that Thou wouldst 
 vouchsafe to purify, bless, sanctify, and conse¬ 
 crate this cemetery, we beseech Thee to hear 
 
 _ >> 
 us. 
 
 To prayer and the sign of the cross, the 
 bishop adds a third sanctifying agent, and 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 109 
 
 after having blessed the salt and water, he 
 walks around the four sides of the ground, 
 sprinkling it with holy-water. Returning to 
 the central cross, he prays that when the 
 angel’s trumpet shall sound, all the bodies 
 here interred, may arise to enjoy eternal hap¬ 
 piness. He then incenses the principal cross, 
 the figure of Jesus Christ, and taking the three 
 lighted tapers from the wooden stands, sets 
 them on the top of the cross. He repeats 
 this last ceremony at each of the four lesser 
 crosses. Thus is proclaimed and professed 
 the belief in a general resurrection to life of 
 all men, effected by virtue and power of the 
 cross of r Calvary. Could any thing be more 
 expressive ? 
 
 Two prayers follow, with a preface of sin¬ 
 gular beauty, both in style and meaning. In 
 language that might have come from heaven, 
 the Church, by the mouth of her bishop, re¬ 
 counting all the mysteries of time and eter¬ 
 nity, reminds her Divine Spouse of all His 
 claims upon her gratitude and confidence; 
 namely, His infinite power, and His equally 
 infinite wisdom, goodness and mercy. She 
 then beseeches Him to bless this cemetery 
 as He blessed of old the tomb of Abra¬ 
 ham, the father of the faithful; and as He 
 
11 o The Christian Cemetery 
 
 % 
 
 gave the Promised Land to the Israelites 
 forever, He would deign now to secure to the 
 bodies resting in this spot undisturbed repose, 
 exemption from all desecration, ab omni 
 spurciticz inquinamento , deliverance from all 
 attacks of the devil, ab omni incursione malo- 
 rum spirituum; and that finally, as He had 
 in the person of Lazarus, who was four days 
 buried, foreshadowed the resurrection of the 
 whole human family, He would vouchsafe to 
 call to a glorious resurrection all those bodies 
 here present which had been purchased by 
 the blood of Calvary. 
 
 How sublime an idea of the dignity of 
 Christian burial, as well as of the worth of 
 our bodies, is conveyed to our minds by these 
 admirable prayers and solemn ceremonies! 
 Besides, however, challenging your admir¬ 
 ation, reverence, and confidence, they have 
 no doubt excited your wonder; for they evi¬ 
 dently suppose that we may be disturbed in 
 our graves by evil spirits. And so it is, my 
 dear Frederic, they not only suppose it, but 
 assert it, and we are bound to believe it. 
 We have not a more authentic monument of 
 the belief of the Church than her rituals and 
 the Roman Pontifical. I may add that this 
 belief in evil spirits disturbing the dead is a 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 11 r 
 
 portion of the deposit of universal tradition, 
 intrusted to the infallible keeping of our Holy- 
 Mother the Church. 
 
 In the first place, you must know that the 
 pagans themselves had preserved a more or 
 less confused knowledge of this truth. Not to 
 enter into long detail, I will merely recall to 
 your memory the fear they always manifested 
 of the wicked manes, (impii manes,) and the 
 practices they employed to drive them from 
 their tombs. A Greek pagan, in order to de¬ 
 fend his dwelling against the attacks of evil 
 spirits, had written over his door: “ Hercules, 
 the god of protection, lives here.” At a later 
 date, the inhabitants of Antioch, in order to 
 avert the dangers of earthquakes, often the 
 work of the devil, had inscribed upon the 
 walls of their houses, “ Christ is here, be still.” 
 And to-day, in the very midst of the onslaught 
 of satanic infidelity, we find in the homes of 
 many families, pictures of the Sacred Heart of 
 Jesus, with the words, “Cease, the heart of 
 Jesus is with me.” There is nothing new 
 under the sun of the Church. If it is true, 
 then, that evil spirits can trouble the living 
 and haunt their dwellings, why would not 
 God, in His mysterious counsels, allow them 
 the same power over the dead? As we have 
 
112 The Christian Cemetery • 
 
 seen, it is to neutralize this power, that the 
 Church blesses the dwellings of the dead. 
 And she is right; for from century to century, 
 authentic facts prove that God permits the 
 devils, those appalling ministers of His jus¬ 
 tice, to inflict chastisements on the bodies of 
 sinners. 
 
 Among many examples supplied by history, 
 I will cite only the following. In one place, a 
 flame of fire was seen to force its way into the 
 grave of an impenitent victim of lust, and 
 burn up his polluted remains. An instance 
 is vouched for of a wretched, abandoned 
 female, whose body was torn from the bed of 
 death. In Milan, the body of an impenitent 
 sinner who had been buried in a holy spot, 
 was carried off by two spirits of horrible 
 aspect, and thrown beyond the walls of the 
 consecrated ground. Again we read of 
 dragons torturing the remains of unjust kings. 
 Is it necessary to add that evil spirits have the 
 power to clothe themselves in the bodies of 
 the dead, or at least in their forms ? How else 
 are we to account for the apparitions, noises, 
 revelations, etc., so well known to day in spirit¬ 
 ualistic circles ? 
 
 The Church knows what she is doing, when 
 using so much solemnity in the blessing of a 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 113 
 
 cemetery. Well aware of the powerful hatred 
 of the devil, she knows that prayer, blessings, 
 and holy-water, which have been safeguards 
 to man during life, are also efficacious after 
 death. Her faith is the faith of ages. 
 
 Hence the common practice of burying 
 with a corpse, articles that have been blessed, 
 such as scapulars, crosses, medals, and 
 rosaries. Hence, too, those last solemn 
 words which fall from the lips of the priest 
 at the edge of the grave, Requiescat in pace; 
 “ May he rest in peace! ” This prayer of the 
 Church applies not only to the soul, but also 
 to the body of the deceased ; indeed, to the 
 whole man. It evidently supposes a disturb¬ 
 ance of man even in the tomb. By whom ? 
 By the devil, of course. Hence, also, that 
 short but mysterious inscription found on 
 thousands of the niches in the Catacombs, 
 where repose the bodies of the early Christians, 
 those heroic servants of God, namely, hi pace , 
 “ In peace.” Yes, in peace of soul, in peace 
 with the Church ; in peace of body too, placed 
 as it is in earth consecrated and defended by 
 prayer against all infernal agencies; in peace 
 inviolable until the glorious resurrection. 
 Hence, too, in fine, another still more explicit 
 inscription, Christus hie est , “ Christ is here.” 
 
114 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 Great is the advantage then for body as 
 well as for soul to be buried in consecrated 
 soil. 
 
 Pardon, if you please, this long letter. 
 

 I 
 
 ELEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 Duties in regard to Cemeteries—Four Modes of mani¬ 
 festing our Reverence—Cemeteries must be inclosed 
 —Visits to Cemeteries—Appeals to our Eyes, Hearts, 
 and Souls — Surroundings — Ungrateful to forget 
 our Dead— Swiss Burial-Grounds—The “ Solidaires ” 
 
 SHOCKED. 
 
 I My Dear Friend : 
 
 What profit should we derive from the 
 imposing ceremony just witnessed ? We 
 should be moved to compassion, if not to in¬ 
 dignation, for those unhappy people of our 
 times who seek every opportunity and use 
 every means to profane our cemetery, deprive 
 it of its sacred character, and convert it into a 
 dunghill. We should also be deeply im¬ 
 pressed with a strong sense of our duties 
 toward the resting-place of our dead—duties 
 that may be summed up in the one word, 
 Respect. This respect ought to manifest itself 
 in a fourfold manner; namely, in caring for 
 the cemetery, and especially the cross; in the 
 
116 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 inclosure of the grounds ; in our visits; and 
 in the surroundings of the place. 
 
 Our cemeteries, consecrated as they are, 
 and set apart by the Church as receptacles for 
 the remains of God’s children, brethren of the 
 Incarnate Word, are, next to our consecrated 
 temples, the holiest spots on earth. Nay 
 more, my dear Frederic, they are so identi¬ 
 fied with the Church that they are similarly 
 affected. If, for example, the Church should 
 be desecrated, the desecration extends to the 
 soil of the churchyard surrounding; and as it 
 is not lawful to celebrate the holy mysteries in 
 a desecrated church, so too is it wrong to 
 bury in desecrated ground until it be first 
 blessed over again. 
 
 Care should be taken of gates and fences 
 so as to prevent cattle from grazing in the 
 grounds. No rubbish, sticks, stones, sweep¬ 
 ings of the church, weeds, or other unsightly 
 objects should ever be found within its pre¬ 
 cincts. The paths should be clean and neat, 
 the headstones kept erect, and the mounds 
 tidily sodded. People should not be permitted 
 to make thoroughfares, much less to hold 
 meetings in these sacred places. The division 
 between the parts consecrated and the unhal¬ 
 lowed portion should be scrupulously marked. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . I r 7 
 
 Very special attention should be bestowed 
 upon the cross, that image of Him who is 
 the resurrection and the life. 
 
 In a well-ordered parish, the cemetery is 
 always carefully inclosed. This is proper; for, 
 as you know, a sleeping man is comparatively 
 defenseless; and the Church watches over us 
 with equal solicitude in our graves and in our 
 cradles. Like the angel with the flaming 
 sword at the gates of paradise, she takes her 
 stand at the cemetery-gate to prevent all intru¬ 
 sion, whether voluntary or involuntary, upon 
 our death-slumbers. 
 
 We should make frequent visits to the home 
 of the dead. It is a holy book which speaks 
 most effectively to the eyes of our soul, as well 
 as to those of our body. It speaks thus to rich 
 and poor, young and old: “You will one day 
 be here; I expect you at any moment; for I 
 am the inevitable rendezvous of all nenera- 
 
 o 
 
 tions. .Those who are here were once as you 
 are now, and you will soon be just as they are 
 to-day. Do you wish to know what they are, 
 and what you will be? Just lift this stone, 
 dig up a few handfuls of earth, open the coffin, 
 and look!” This will be the end of all your 
 labors, cares, anxieties, and strivings after 
 honors and riches. “Within my womb,” it 
 
118 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 continues, “your body will undergo strange 
 developments, like unto the seed that falls in 
 the furrow from the hand of the husbandman. 
 I am God’s field, and you will one day see me 
 covered with a two-fold harvest; one of wheat 
 destined for the granaries of the Master, and 
 another of tares fated to be burned for all ages 
 with the devils in hell. In this place will 
 occur the separation of the sheep from the 
 goats. This will be your starting-point for 
 the valley of Josaphat, to hear pronounced 
 upon you, in presence of assembled nations, 
 that sentence which will decide your lot for 
 all eternity. Here, too, will you catch the 
 first notes of the angel’s trumpet, as with power 
 greater than that which shattered the walls 
 of Jericho, it will send its tones into the 
 bowels of the earth, saying, Arise, ye dead, 
 and come to judgment. Surgite , mortui , venite 
 ad judicium? How touching its appeal to our 
 senses! “Saunter through my domain,” it 
 says, “ and listen to the hundred voices as 
 they issue from the sepulchres. Hear this 
 one say, 4 1 am your father who labored hard 
 for you;’ another, ‘ I am your mother who 
 once loved you tenderly;’ others again, ‘We 
 are your brothers, your sisters, your wife, your 
 husband, your friend, your child, your pastor.' 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . i 19 
 
 “ Hearken to these voices as, all together, 
 they cry out, ‘ Have pity on us, O you who 
 were once friends and neighbors! have pity on 
 us now. Remember us when you pray, when 
 you give alms, and at the holy sacrifice of the 
 mass, for Christ died for us all; ” 
 
 My dear Frederic, what excellent spiritual 
 reading the cemetery affords ! A quarter of 
 an hour given once every week, to this inex¬ 
 haustible book would convert all men ; for it 
 is written, “In all thy works, remember thy 
 last end, and thou shalt never sin.” (Ecclus. 
 7 : 40.) Yes, our last end—our death, our 
 judgment may be learned in meditation over 
 the graves of the dead. The Church in her 
 motherly solicitude, wishing to have every 
 facility offered to her children, that they may 
 be enabled to study a page of this admirable 
 book at least once a week, when on Sunday 
 they assemble for divine service, places her 
 cemeteries around her altars. To this arrange¬ 
 ment, the revolutionists object. Resolved not 
 to permit the cemetery to exist near the 
 church, they are just now leaving nothing un¬ 
 done to have it removed out of sight. In this 
 movement they are consistent; for they will 
 thus succeed in utterly destroying every thing 
 that was considered holy, sacred, and moral, 
 
i 20 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 not only among Christians, but even among 
 the old pagans themselves. 
 
 Alas ! what will become of our time-honored 
 devotion toward our dead, if, in order to say 
 a prayer at their graves, we must undertake a 
 long and inconvenient journey, with the pros¬ 
 pect of finding the gates barred against us, 
 as is most frequently the-case ? Now, a peo¬ 
 ple who forget their dead are ungrateful; and 
 an ungrateful people are always bad. 
 
 As yet, however, notwithstanding the per¬ 
 sistent efforts of infidel Communists, the 
 cemetery is contiguous to the church in most 
 country Catholic parishes. This arrangement 
 is faithfully adhered to in the German portions 
 of Switzerland. Neither of us, my dear Fred¬ 
 eric, can ever forget the touching sights that 
 greeted our eyes, at every mile, as we tra¬ 
 veled the Cantons of Soleure, Lucerne, and 
 Schweitz. In every one of the pretty villages, 
 you discover a neat church, with its slender 
 spire, and surrounded by a well-kept cemetery, 
 whose entrance is also the entrance to the 
 church. The gates yield to a gentle pres¬ 
 sure of the hand, for they are closed, but 
 not locked. You enter upon the well-trim¬ 
 med path, and on your left and right you 
 perceive two elegant pedestals bearing vessels 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 1 2 1 
 
 filled with holy*water, and near them a 
 sprinkler, which you lift to throw a few drops 
 on the nearest graves. The mounds are 
 tidily sodded with greenest turf, and placed in 
 perfectly even rows at equal distances apart. 
 Graveled walks wind their way to each grave, 
 to enable friends to reach with ease and de¬ 
 corum the spot containing the ashes of their 
 loved ones. Every mound has its modest 
 cross about two feet in height, bearing the 
 name, age, and date of death of the deceased, 
 followed by a short prayer, or a quotation 
 from the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 When, through the golden haze of an Al¬ 
 pine sunset, you descry in the distance one of 
 these fields of God—as the inhabitants call 
 them—placidly reposing on the mountain¬ 
 side, with its simple headboards standing 
 range after range in perfectly parallel lines, 
 and painted in colors that contrast beautifully 
 with the brilliant verdure of the graves, a 
 gentle melancholy enters the heart, and as 
 tears start to your eyes, a prayer falls from 
 your lips for the eternal repose of the dead. 
 The memories of former times, of ages of 
 faith, crowd upon us and we are carried 
 back through the long lines of our truly 
 Catholic ancestry, to the Catacombs of Rome. 
 
122 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 How striking the resemblance! Here you 
 have, as in subterranean Rome, the altar of 
 the principal martyr within the village church, 
 and around it kneel in pious prayer a group 
 of Christians preparing for the final struggle. 
 Surrounding the living you see a cordon of 
 dead. And although their lips are blanched, 
 they speak in tones of gentle warning about 
 detachment from earthly things, of an immor¬ 
 tal crown, and of eternal rest. Reluctantly we 
 leave the scene, but with hearts consoled to 
 know that our Holy Mother, the Catholic 
 Church, is ever the same. Our joy would be 
 full, did not the unwelcome remembrance 
 break in upon us of a set of men with notions 
 unworthy of a savage, whose aim it is not only 
 to shut the dead from the living, but even by 
 irreligious burial-rites to dishonor our ceme¬ 
 teries, and grant us no better obsequies than 
 they would give to the horse or mule ; an igno¬ 
 miny offered only to the unrepentant of the 
 old law: “ He shall be buried with the burial 
 of an ass, rotten and cast forth, without the 
 gates of Jerusalem.” (Jer. 22 : 19.) 
 
% 
 
 TWELFTH LETTER. 
 
 A Short History of Cemeteries—Ancient Modes of dis¬ 
 posing of the Dead—Interments in Dwellings—Re¬ 
 
 spect for Burial-Places—Cremation — Confused Re¬ 
 membrance among Pagans of the Law of Inhumation 
 —Our Duty toward the Unburied—Whose Bodies 
 
 WERE LEFT UNBURIED. 
 
 Dear Frederic : 
 
 My last letter treated of the reverence and 
 care due to cemeteries, and of the lessons de¬ 
 rived from them. “ But why,” you ask, “ are 
 our cemeteries consecrated with so much 
 parade ; why sprinkled with holy-water, and 
 perfumed with incense ?.” Before satisfying 
 your pardonable curiosity, I will give you, in 
 a few brief words, the history of sepulture. 
 Meanwhile, rest assured that our Holy 
 Mother, the Church, does nothing without 
 good and sufficient reasons. The very fact 
 of her saying or doing a thing is evidence 
 enough that it is right and proper. 
 
 On going back to remotest pagan anti¬ 
 quity, we find that the resting-places of the 
 
124 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 dead were within the walls of private dwell¬ 
 ings. I will quote only a few authorities. 
 “ In early times,” says Servius, “ the bodies of 
 the dead were kept in their own homes, 
 whence arose the domestic worship of the 
 Lares, and the term, Larvas, given to departed 
 spirits.” Another author tells us : “ It was 
 the custom among the ancients for each family 
 to preserve its dead in the house. Hence 
 every home had its own worship of ‘ the 
 Shades ” 
 
 We all know that the Egyptians embalmed 
 the bodies of deceased persons, and preserved 
 them carefully at home. People who showed 
 so much love and respect for their dead as 
 not to part with their remains, can not be sus¬ 
 pected of sharing the opinions of nineteenth- 
 century Communists, that is, that their respect 
 and love were thrown away on decaying clods 
 of earth. The confused traditional belief in the 
 immortality of the soul, and the consequent 
 faith in the resurrection of the flesh, held at 
 all times and by all nations, is of more w r eight 
 and importance than all the negations of 
 infidel philosophers. 
 
 Of course, respect for the dead, when carried 
 to extremes, degenerated into idolatry ; as is 
 the case with the Chinese to-day in their an- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 125 
 
 cestral worship. History relates that whole 
 nations of Africa had no other gods than the 
 “ Manes,” that is, the spirits of their ancestors. 
 By them they swore, in their names they con¬ 
 sulted the oracles, and by them they were 
 guided in all affairs of moment. Indeed, 
 these practices were becoming so universal 
 that God, in the Holy Scriptures, decreed 
 capital punishment against any person found 
 guilty of consulting departed spirits. It is, 
 therefore, many centuries since spiritualism 
 was condemned. 
 
 Sepulture in private houses could never 
 become very general, or last for any length of 
 time. Large as we may suppose the houses 
 to be, they would soon become too small for 
 the living and dead. People soon began to 
 bury in the temples, thus showing that they 
 did not despise human remains, as being 
 naught but decomposing matter. Nay, his¬ 
 tory assures us that these temples had their 
 origin in sepulture; in other words, the first 
 burial-places were places of worship. “ So 
 great was the reverence among the ancients 
 for their tombs that,” as Eusebius and Lac- 
 tantius assert, “they were made the founda¬ 
 tions of sacred edifices.” 
 
 Another writer, describing the funereal 
 
i26 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 practices of the ancients, says, “ Among the 
 people of antiquity, the homes of the dead 
 were held so sacred that they were more scru¬ 
 pulously cared for than the dwellings of the 
 living. They were constantly watched, to 
 guard against profanation by the burial of an 
 unclean stranger, a vicious member of their 
 own community, or by destruction or distur¬ 
 bance of a tomb. It was not allowed to repair a 
 tombstone, if it could not be done without in¬ 
 terfering with the ashes of the dead. Every 
 violation was punishable with death, scourg¬ 
 ing, hard work in the mines, or the amputation 
 of both hands.” 
 
 The Roman law, therefore, only sanctions 
 a universal custom, when it decrees, “ The 
 spot where a man lies buried is sacred.” 
 Ubi corpus de mortui hominis condas , sacer esto. 
 Ancient reverence naturally gave rise to much 
 extravagance in cemeteries. It knew no 
 bounds among the Romans, as witnessed to¬ 
 day in Rome, by Adrians monument, the 
 pyramid of Cestius, and the mausoleum of 
 Cecilia Metella. In Egypt, we have the colos¬ 
 sal pyramids of the Pharaohs; whilst in 
 Greece, the extravagance was such, as to call 
 for the enactment of the following law, quot¬ 
 ed by Cicero : “ On account of the excessive 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 12 7 
 
 costliness of the tombs erected in the military 
 cemetery at Athens, it is forbidden to put up 
 expensive structures, or those requiring more 
 than eight days in their construction. No 
 statuary must be set up, and no discourse is 
 to be delivered except by the public officer 
 whose duty it is to do so.” 
 
 If pagans thus honored their dead, we must 
 not wonder at the respect paid by the Church, 
 in all ages, to her holy martyrs. Although the 
 early Christians were generally poor, yet they 
 cheerfully sacrificed their all to beautify the 
 resting-places of those heroic witnesses of the 
 faith. Marble, porphyry, bronze, silver, and 
 gold were all employed to prepare worthy re¬ 
 ceptacles for their consecrated ashes. 
 
 Long after the dispersion at Babel, the na¬ 
 tions preserved a dim recollection of the sen¬ 
 tence pronounced by God against their first 
 father, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust thou 
 shalt return,” (Gen. 3 : 19,) and scrupulously 
 laid their dead in the earth. Cremation, or 
 the burning of bodies, practiced by the Ro¬ 
 mans, Greeks, Gauls, and Germans, comes at 
 a much later period. Its origin, according to 
 the elder Pliny, was as follows : “ The early 
 Romans did not consume their dead ; but 
 finding by experience in later years, that the 
 
128 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 bodies of soldiers killed in battle and buried in 
 distant lands were afterward dug up by the 
 enemy, it was decided, thereafter, to burn these 
 bodies on the battle-field, and carry away the 
 ashes. Inhumation, however, was always more 
 or less practiced. Thus, no member of the 
 Cornelia family was ever burned prior to the 
 time of Sylla, the dictator; and he wished to 
 have his body consumed on the funeral pile, 
 lest it should be dug up and mutilated by the 
 friends of Marius, whose body he himself had 
 thus treated.” The practice of burning the 
 dead was discontinued under Constantine. 
 
 At no period of their history, even when 
 cremation was universally practiced, did the 
 Romans lose sight of the fitness of burial in 
 the earth. Cicero is very clear on this matter, 
 when he tells us, “ Previous to the earth being 
 thrown upon the dead, the place where the 
 body has been burned is not held sacred ; but 
 when the earth has been cast upon the dead 
 they are considered buried, and the place then 
 enjoys many sacred privileges.” Horace and 
 Virgil both allude to this belief. “ Throw 
 upon my body, ” says the first, “ a few handfuls 
 of earth, and then go thy way.” Virgil says, 
 “ Throw earth upon my remains.” It was a 
 sacred duty for every traveler to stop, and 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 129 
 
 throw some earth upon any lifeless body which 
 he might meet lying unburied. The dead 
 were supposed to beg this act of mercy. Se¬ 
 neca assures us that this law of charity was 
 .considered more binding than any written in 
 the code. Whence arose this desire of hav¬ 
 ing the dead covered with earth ? From a 
 confused remembrance of the right method of 
 burial, as ordered by God, when He con¬ 
 demned man to death; as well as from the 
 superstitious yet common belief among pa¬ 
 gans, that the soul of an unburied corpse was 
 condemned to wander up and down the banks 
 of the river Styx, for one hundred years. To 
 this kind of purgatory, or non-interment, pagan 
 law condemned parricides, matricides, and 
 suicides. The last had their hands cut off, 
 and thrown into the common sink. The He¬ 
 brews left their suicides above ground. The 
 Athenians amputated the guilty hand, and 
 buried it apart from the body. In our en¬ 
 lightened age, in which suicide abounds, all 
 these salutary penalties, which were so many 
 wholesome protestations of society against 
 the worst of crimes, have been abolished. 
 Where are we going to stop ? 
 
THIRTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Cremation—Why practiced—Mode of saving the Ashes— 
 Ancient “ Columbaries” — General Cemeteries—Their 
 Antiquity—The Property of the Church. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 Society has practiced two kinds of sepul¬ 
 ture ; inhumation and cremation. I have al¬ 
 ready spoken of inhumation or burial under 
 ground. Why was cremation practiced, and 
 how were the ashes of the corpse distinguished 
 from the ashes of the funeral pile ? These 
 two questions I will now answer. 
 
 In the first place, what was the process in 
 burning bodies ? The obsequies of the 
 wealthy inhabitants of Rome were performed 
 in the Field of Mars, where funeral piles, in 
 the shape of altars, were erected, and tastefully 
 and richly ornamented. On one of these, the 
 body, sprinkled with perfumes, was carefully 
 laid, with its face toward heaven. Then the 
 nearest relative, holding a lighted torch be* 
 
 
The Christian Cemetery . i 31 
 
 hind him, walked backward to the pile, and set 
 it on fire. As it was believed that the spirit of 
 the deceased person was pleased with the shed¬ 
 ding of blood, oxen and sheep were slaugh¬ 
 tered and thrown into the flames. For the 
 same reason, gladiators fought before the pile 
 while the fire was burning. These combats 
 were a substitute for the more ancient cruel 
 practice of immolating prisoners of war near 
 the funeral piles of soldiers slain in battle. 
 
 As soon as the body was consumed, the 
 fire was quenched with wine; the ashes and 
 charred bones gathered up, washed in milk 
 and wine, and then inclosed in an urn, some¬ 
 times of great value. 
 
 Such was the cremation of the rich. That 
 of the poor and the slaves was carried out 
 with much less ceremony. Their bodies were 
 thrown indiscriminately into large pits sur¬ 
 rounded with high walls,-and in which burned 
 large quantities of resinous wood. These 
 were on the Esquiline hill, without the city. 
 It was by special privilege, that even the rich 
 had their obsequies within the walls, and in the 
 public square; for a law of the twelve tables 
 forbade their performance within the city 
 limits. In urbe ne sepelito neque nrito . 
 
 Now that you are aware of the practice of 
 
132 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 burning the dead, you may wish to know the 
 reasons for it. Although I have consulted 
 very many learned writers, both living and 
 dead, on this point, I have not found any 
 satisfactory answer. Some, quoting Pliny, 
 pretend that the bodies were burned to secure 
 them against profanation. This was very well 
 as regards the bodies of soldiers dying far 
 away from home and in an enemy’s country; 
 but it does not explain the common practice 
 of burning the people of the city of Rome, 
 where no profanation need be apprehended. 
 Neither does it explain cremation among the 
 Greeks, Germans, and Gauls. 
 
 There are some who claim, that the bodies 
 were burned to save them from a slower and 
 sadder decomposition by worms and serpents 
 in the earth; as well also that the relatives 
 might have the comfort of having near them 
 an everlasting portion of those whom they had 
 loved when alive. In any case, it can not be 
 said, that contempt or dislike had any thing 
 to do with this custom. 
 
 There are many who pretend to discover 
 an inspiration of the devil in the practice. 
 For in the first place, cremation did not come 
 into use, until inhumation had been practiced 
 for centuries; and even then it was confined 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. i35 
 
 to certain localities. It is extremely repug¬ 
 nant to our feelings of love toward the bodies 
 of our friends, to have them crisped and char¬ 
 red. It is evidently not of divine inspiration; 
 for it is the very opposite of inhumation as 
 regulated by the primitive sentence of God 
 Himself. It is opposed to the practice of the 
 people of God, and to all very ancient peo¬ 
 ples generally. It is opposed to the spirit of 
 Christianity, which, considering the custom a 
 cruel and barbarous one, never practiced it; 
 nay, sought the earliest opportunity, under 
 Constantine, to abolish it. 
 
 In a word, God has said, “ The body of 
 man will return to the earth whence it came, 
 there to be transformed, in order to rise again 
 immortal.” God’s eternal adversary, the devil, 
 would reply, “ It must not be as you say; 
 man must be burnt; for in thus annihilating 
 him as much as possible, I will wipe out all 
 knowledge of, and belief in, the dogma of the 
 resurrection.” He succeeded but too well; if 
 we may believe Tertullian, whose words I will 
 quote in confirmation of the above. “ The 
 ignorant laugh at our ideas of a resurrection, 
 and say that nothing remains of us after 
 death. And yet they continually pay homage 
 to their dead by great and costly parades, 
 
134 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 sumptuous banquets, which they claim are 
 pleasing to those dead in whom they refuse to 
 admit any life, feeling, or knowledge. I, in 
 my turn, and with good reason, laugh at these 
 people, who after they have barbarously char¬ 
 red and crisped their dead, then feed them, 
 and in the same moment honor and insult 
 them by fire. Piety playing with cruelty. Is 
 it an honor or an insult to burn articles of 
 food for those whom they are burning?” If 
 we want any further evidence that cremation 
 is an inspiration of the devil, we have only to 
 listen to the preachings of our modern pagans 
 in France and Italy, who clamor for a return 
 to this detestable practice of antiquity. 
 
 We will now examine the mode whereby 
 the human ashes were distinguishable from 
 those of the wood and animals consumed in 
 the same fire. Here, also, the learned have 
 not much to say. It is quite certain, how¬ 
 ever, that the ancients had some means of 
 knowing one from the other. What was it ? 
 Well, the most probable opinion is, that in 
 the centre of the top of the pile there was set 
 an iron or brick oven in which the body was 
 burned without permitting the ashes to scat¬ 
 ter, or allowing the other ashes to get mixed 
 with them. The practice of burning bodies 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. i 35 
 
 and saving their ashes gave rise to a sort of 
 cemetery called a columbary. This name 
 took its origin from the little openings, like 
 pigeon-holes, made in the wall, and in which 
 the urns holding the ashes were set. Each 
 of these openings was closed with a slab bear¬ 
 ing on its outer surface, the name of the per¬ 
 son whose remains were within. In common 
 with most Roman tourists, you and I have 
 visited the columbaries of Hylas, and of the 
 freedmen of Augustus. They are large 
 square chambers excavated in the earth, 
 whose entrance is by an easy stair-way hewn in 
 the rock. Although these columbaries were 
 not cemeteries in the true sense of the word, 
 yet they prove that the custom of keeping 
 and owning a place of burial for the use of a 
 community, a corporation, or a family is as 
 old as the world itself. Whilst, as regards 
 cemeteries in the correct and proper sense of 
 the word, nothing is more evident. For the 
 Scriptures tell us that the patriarch Abraham, 
 not owning any land, purchased a cave in the 
 vale of Mambre, which he fitted up as a fam¬ 
 ily vault, buried in it his wife Sarah, and 
 was buried there himself, as were his descen¬ 
 dants, Jacob and Joseph. The Israelites es¬ 
 teemed it a blessing to be interred near 
 
r 3 6 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 their fathers, and a greater misfortune could 
 hardly befall them than to be excluded from 
 the tombs of their ancestors. This exclusion 
 was one of the most dreaded threats made by 
 God to the guilty. 
 
 The pagans, too, even those who burned 
 their dead, had places of general sepulture. 
 Witness, besides the columbary lately describ¬ 
 ed, the necropolis of Egypt and of Athens. 
 In Pompeii, the cemetery is found to be at 
 the entrance to the city. In your visits to the 
 capital of the world, you must have noticed 
 the long lines of tombs bordering the Appian 
 Way. Every traveler has stopped to gaze 
 upon the mausoleums of Cestius and Cecilia 
 Metella, and penetrate into the mortuary 
 chamber of the Scipios. Like Abraham, the 
 wealthy Romans purchased plots of ground 
 to form the resting-places of their bones and 
 those of their family after death. 
 
 The Turks have their cemeteries, which 
 they hold to be as sacred as did the ancient 
 Greeks and Romans their burial-places. 
 They visit them, too, and in lieu of prayers, 
 have the Mussulman priests to read, from the 
 Koran, passages expressive of respect for the 
 dead. 
 
 The Christians, of course, always had their 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 137 
 
 cemeteries. After being kept for three centu¬ 
 ries under ground, as soon as persecutions 
 ceased, the Church placed her cemeteries in 
 the sunshine. So they have continued. They 
 were her property, because they were sacred 
 places, and blessed with her blessings. It is 
 eminently right and proper that the mother 
 should have full control of the dormitory 
 where her children sleep. 
 
 In my next, I will reply to your question, 
 Why does the Church bless cemeteries ? 
 
FOURTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Why the Church blesses Cemeteries—Dignity of the 
 Human Body—Consoling Doctrine of Tertullian. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 I now reply to your question, Why does 
 the Church bless cemeteries? For various 
 reasons: among others to proclaim her faith 
 in the sanctity of the human body, in the 
 dogma of universal charity, and in our glori¬ 
 ous destiny beyond the grave. Consequently 
 she blesses them, first to save them from all 
 profane uses, to expel the spirits of darkness, 
 and to intrust them to the care of the an¬ 
 gels : secondly, to bear witness that the faith¬ 
 ful, whose bodies lie here buried, died within 
 her communion, and belong, as far as she 
 can judge, to the society of the elect. By 
 this blessing, the cemetery becomes, for the 
 faithful departed, a sort of subterranean 
 
 i 7 
 
 church where they are awaiting a glorious 
 
1 he Christian Cemetery . 
 
 139 
 
 resurrection. Thirdly, the Church blesses 
 cemeteries to testify to her children her mo¬ 
 therly affection, by following them even into 
 the grave, and beyond it. By her example 
 she moves us to works of mercy, so lauded in 
 the Scriptures, where we are commanded to 
 procure for the dead honorable sepulture. 
 She reminds us of the pious Tobias, and imi¬ 
 tates the holy women who cared for the 
 tomb of Our Saviour. Fourthly, the Church 
 blesses cemeteries to make them a place of 
 prayer for the use of the faithful living, and 
 to invite all Christians to pray for their dead 
 brethren. This blessing not only sanctifies 
 the ground where the deceased faithful are 
 to lie, but it is advantageous to their souls. 
 It remains attached to the very soil, like a 
 continual prayer, in which the Church invokes 
 divine mercy in favor of the faithful depart¬ 
 ed, that at the last day they may hear the an¬ 
 gel’s trumpet to their glory and happiness. 
 
 See, then, the immense advantage of sepul¬ 
 ture in consecrated ground ; and what cruelty 
 it is to deny it to the dead. How justly may 
 be applied to the Communists the words of 
 Holy Scripture, “ The bowels of the wicked 
 are cruel.” (Prov. 12: 10.) Place yourself in 
 front of one of those fearful volcanoes of man’s 
 
140 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 industry, a burning furnace. Imagine you see 
 your wife, or child, or some dear friend, falling 
 into the yawning gulf of fire. You have it in 
 your power to save the victim, but an officer 
 of the law or a deputation from an enlighten¬ 
 ed society endeavors to thwart your efforts 
 telling you that to save them would be only 
 superstition. Where is the man that would 
 listen to such nonsense, jor submit to such 
 tyranny? To fight against such interference 
 would be a solemn duty. 
 
 As already stated, the Church blesses her 
 cemeteries in order to manifest her respect for 
 the bodies of the faithful, her faith in the 
 dogma of universal brotherhood, as well as in 
 our glorious destiny beyond the tomb. Here 
 begins the real subject of this and my subse¬ 
 quent letters. In our time, no subject is 
 more important. Pray, then, to God and His 
 Blessed Mother that I may prove equal to the 
 task which friendship for you has imposed 
 upon me. 
 
 The cemetery is a most eloquent preacher 
 on the sanctity of man’s body in general, and 
 especially of the body of the Christian. “ I 
 am sanctified,” it says, “ I am a consecrated 
 vessel, a reliquary; for I am set apart to 
 receive something holy, namely, your body.” 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 141 
 
 In fact, next to the soul, nothing is nobler or 
 holier than your flesh. To understand this 
 truth, hear what Tertullian — that eloquent 
 doctor, who has been the admiration of ages—- 
 says : 
 
 “ The first and chief claim which your body 
 has to love and respect is founded in the 
 great majesty of its Creator ; for it was made 
 not by a man nor by an angel, but by God 
 Himself. The difference between God’s man¬ 
 ner of making man and other creatures is vast. 
 To call the latter into existence, a word was 
 sufficient; but for man’s creation, God used 
 not only His word, but his hand. Yes, God’s 
 hand was used to establish man’s sovereignty, 
 so as not to confound him with other crea¬ 
 tures : He formed him —-finxit hominem . 
 
 “ At the mere sound of God’s voice all the 
 inferior creatures sprang into existence, and 
 at once became man’s servants. Whilst in 
 order to make man the king of creation, 
 he was fashioned by the divine hand. This 
 is a sign of royalty. Remember that man is 
 properly termed flesh, and this was his first 
 name. ‘ The Lord God formed man of the 
 slime of the earth.’ (Gen. 2 : 7.) Already man, 
 and yet slime of the earth, jam homo qui adhuc 
 limus. ‘And God . . . breathed into his face 
 
142 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 the breath of life.’ (Gen. 2 : 7.) Thus man, 
 as yet the slime of the earth, becomes complete 
 —adeo homo figmentum prim'd , dehinc totus. 
 In this I wish to show and teach man that 
 what God has done for him is due not exclu¬ 
 sively to his soul, but also to his body— non 
 soli animee , verum et carni ’ scias debitumd* 
 
 Thus the chief source of our body’s nobility 
 and its first claim to our respect is the fact of 
 its being God’s work. But there is a second 
 claim, more sacred than the first. For our 
 body is formed after the model of that of the 
 Word made flesh. Hear Tertullian again: 
 “ In the construction of this body, a great 
 thing has been accomplished; for every time 
 that it was touched by the hand of God— 
 each time that it was divided, cut, extended, 
 fashioned—so each time it was specially 
 honored. Do you not see God intently en¬ 
 gaged in this work? using His hand with 
 jealous care, His thought, His labor, His 
 deliberation, His wisdom, His providence, 
 and especially His love in forming its parts?” 
 
 And why all this painstaking on the part 
 of the Creator ? Because He had uppermost 
 in His mind, while making man, the thought 
 of Christ, the future perfect Man. The Word 
 
 * De Resurrect. Carnis, c. v. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 143 
 
 which was with God, and which was God, was 
 in future time, when becoming man, to assume 
 this carefully-fashioned slime of the earth. 
 This human nature, which the Creator was 
 now forming with such extreme care, was 
 to be united with the Divine nature in the one 
 person of Jesus Christ, and placed at the right 
 hand of God the Father. Hence humanity 
 was even more than the likeness of God. 
 Non tantum opus Dei erat , sed et pignus —it 
 was not only God’s work, but a pledge of 
 God’s love. Of what account, then, are the 
 sneers of the infidel who affects to despise his 
 body? Let him remember the power and 
 majesty of its great Creator, who deemed slime 
 of the earth a fit subject for the display of His 
 greatest attributes. 
 
 God breathed the breath of life, an immortal 
 soul, into this body of man. Yes, the human 
 body becomes the tabernacle of God’s breath¬ 
 ing. Tertullian thus describes this mystery : 
 ‘ v The lifeless clay becomes glorious and 
 beautiful under the influence of the Creator’s 
 breathing. The rough stone is now a bril¬ 
 liant diamond. Man invents costly vessels to 
 hold his rare wines, artistic caskets to contain 
 his jewels, elaborate scabbards to protect the 
 sensitive steel of his valuable sword. Would 
 
144 Che Christian Cemetery, 
 
 God imprison a soul, His own image, His own 
 breath, in a senseless, shapeless coffin ? No : 
 He consigned it to a well-constructed body. 
 He united the two so closely that it is difficult 
 to know whether the flesh leads the spirit, or 
 the spirit leads the flesh; whether the soul 
 obeys the body, or the body obeys the soul. 
 While it is of faith that the soul asserts autho¬ 
 rity over the body, and gives it character and 
 motion, as being nearer to the Divinity, to the 
 body belongs the honor and glory of contain¬ 
 ing the soul, and sharing its power. 
 
 “ What is there of all the beauty and wealth 
 of the world that is not enjoyed by the soul 
 through the instrumentality of the body ? By 
 the agency of the flesh, the soul enjoys the 
 sense of sight, hearing, and touch. Through 
 the body it receives its communications from 
 heaven, and gives its homage to God, If 
 body and soul are so necessary to each other 
 here below, why not in heaven, in order to 
 attain to a full complement of happiness ?” 
 
 The human body, then, is a work of God, 
 an expression of His wisdom and love ; is form¬ 
 ed after the divine model of the Word made 
 flesh. It is the sanctuary of the soul, shares 
 its power, and is the necessary medium of 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 145 
 
 its joys. What more noble than this body of 
 ours? 
 
 Be not surprised, my dear Frederic, that I 
 thus dwell at length upon the truths suggested 
 by our treatise on sepulture. When was it 
 ever more necessary to remind man of his own 
 dignity? We live in an age when men treat 
 their persons as if they were clods of earth 
 turned up by the plow. Though some there 
 are, too, who claim the duty of rehabilitating 
 the flesh. What sacrilege is this ? Rehabili¬ 
 tation of the flesh, as they understand it, is 
 its degradation, defilement, and profanation. 
 They would rehabilitate the body by degrad¬ 
 ing and defiling it with the virus of concupi¬ 
 scence. To enable it to enjoy, as they say, 
 more fully the gratification of its basest de¬ 
 sires, they pretend to develop and strengthen 
 it by excess of eating and drinking, by idle¬ 
 ness, unlawful pleasures, and countless name¬ 
 less acts of iniquity. 
 
 It is not in this way that God would have 
 us show our respect for our body, that 
 masterpiece of His hand, the image of His 
 Divine Son, the sanctuary of an immortal 
 soul. The proper way to respect our body is 
 to make it subservient to the end for which 
 
146 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 God made it; to esteem it as sacred as the 
 vessels on the altar, to discipline it so as to 
 render it strong and healthy, by the practice of 
 temperance in all things. This indispensable 
 duty is too often neglected. 
 
FIFTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Dignity, Sanctity, and Beauty of the Christian’s Body— 
 Words of Tertullian— Pious Customs—Discomfiture 
 of the Irreverent. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 Of all created beings, the most noble and 
 beautiful are, beyond all question, the angels 
 and the souls of men. Next to them stands 
 the human body. And if the bodies of all 
 men are deserving of our respect, even those 
 of pagans and unregenerated savages, what 
 shall we say of the eminent sanctity of the 
 Christian's body? The body of the unbap¬ 
 tized heathen is a figure more or less deform¬ 
 ed of the Word made flesh; the sanctuary of 
 an unregenerated soul, and the co-worker of 
 this soul, although only in deeds of the pure¬ 
 ly natural order. Such is the three-fold glory 
 of the pagan’s body. But this glory belongs 
 to the Christian in an eminent degree. 
 
 A soul purified by the waters of Baptism is 
 endowed with a superhuman beauty which 
 
148 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 shines out through its body, and which is pre¬ 
 served in that body till tarnished by the first 
 sin. Hence the fact, admitted by observing 
 men, that the true type of genuine beauty is 
 found among Christians only; among Chris¬ 
 tians in Catholics, and among Catholics in 
 the angelic youth, or the virginal maiden. 
 Missionaries assure us that the reception of 
 baptism by the savage and cannibal so chan¬ 
 ges and improves the expression of counten¬ 
 ance that they are hardly recognizable. This 
 beauty is one source of glory for the Chris- 
 tians body and one claim to our respect. 
 
 The Christian’s body, unlike that of the 
 heathen, is the sanctuary or tabernacle, not 
 of a sin-stained soul, of a soul without beauty 
 in the eyes of God, but the tabernacle of a 
 soul whose beauty rivals that of the angels, 
 eclipses that of all visible creatures, of a beau¬ 
 ty which while it ravishes the heart of God 
 Himself, becomes a bright mirror in which He 
 loves to contemplate His own incomparable 
 perfections. Nay, my dear friend, in holy 
 Communion, this same body becomes the ta¬ 
 bernacle of God Himself in person. What 
 more can be said in its favor? This is the 
 second source of the body’s glory, and ano¬ 
 ther title to our respect. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 149 
 
 There is still another, and greater if pos¬ 
 sible. The Christian body is the associate of 
 the soul in all works of the supernatural order. 
 To appreciate the dignity to which the body 
 is entitled by reason of this sublime and mys¬ 
 terious cooperation with the soul, suffice it to 
 say with Tertullian that the body is the pivot 
 of eternal salvation, and so necessary that the 
 soul could not be united to God, without its 
 cooperation. The body is washed in bap¬ 
 tism, that the soul may be cleansed. The 
 body is anointed, that the soul may be conse¬ 
 crated. The body receives imposition of 
 hands, that the soul may be illumined by the 
 Holy Spirit. The body is fed with the Holy 
 Eucharist, that the soul may be strengthened 
 in grace. The body and soul, one in their la¬ 
 bors, can not be separated in their rewards. 
 
 How would mortification of soul, fastings, 
 and all kinds of austerity, those sacrifices so 
 pleasing to God, be possible without the pain¬ 
 ful codperation of the body ? Is it not from 
 attributes of the body that the fragrant in¬ 
 cense of virginity, holy widowhood, and chaste 
 wedlock takes its rise ? 
 
 What must be our admiration of the Chris¬ 
 tian’s body when, in defense of faith, it is 
 made the object of mens hatred, cast into 
 
150 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 prison, horribly maltreated, dragged to the 
 scene of execution, striving in its death-agony 
 to imitate its Saviour, and finally dying a most 
 excruciating death ? Is not the Christian 
 body happy and glorious, nay, highly privi¬ 
 leged in thus faithfully discharging a sublime 
 duty, in the very act of discharging which it 
 renders to God all that He desires—a pure 
 soul, at the same moment ending all its own 
 sufferings ? 
 
 From all this, my dear Frederic, you may 
 form some idea of a Christian body, and of 
 its high and noble duties. You will learn eve¬ 
 ry day more fully to appreciate these truths, 
 if you bear in mind that God by uniting our 
 flesh to our soul, has identified it necessarily 
 with religion. This He has effected in so ad¬ 
 mirable a manner that, if the soul be deprived 
 of its freedom to manifest its love by using 
 the tongue, hands, and prostrations of the body, 
 it is deprived of its most consoling means of 
 the worship that it would fain render to God. 
 But if the soul, when inwardly moved, be free 
 to act upon the body, raising its eyes to heav¬ 
 en, extending its hands, bending its knees and 
 manifesting its adoration in many ways, with 
 hymns, and sighs, and tears of joy or repent¬ 
 ance, the heart is relieved and comforted. It 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 15 1 
 
 would seem that it is not so much the soul as¬ 
 sociating the body to its piety and devotion, 
 as the body hastening to the soul’s aid. In 
 our most spiritual act, that of receiving com¬ 
 munion, the body ministers to the soul, and 
 becomes the instrument through which it re¬ 
 ceives the sacrament. In martyrdom, top, the 
 body is the visible witness, defender, and suf¬ 
 ferer. This is a third glory of the Christian 
 body, its third claim to our respect. 
 
 Need we be astonished, then, my dear 
 friend, at St. Paul’s counsel to Christians, that 
 they respect their bodies ? “ Glorify,” he 
 
 says, “and bear God in your bodies. You 
 are‘temples of the Holy Ghost, and members 
 of Jesus Christ Woe to him who defiles his 
 flesh, for he defiles the temple of God; and 
 God will destroy him who profaneth His tem¬ 
 ple.” Need we wonder that the Church hon¬ 
 ors the body, even after death, with profound 
 respect? I say the Church; because it is 
 from her faithfully preserved store of tradi¬ 
 tions that we draw and enjoy these manifesta¬ 
 tions of gladness and reverence in regard to 
 the Christian body. 
 
 It has always been the custom, from earliest 
 times, to gently close the eyes of deceased 
 persons, that the countenance may bear a 
 
152 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 calm and tranquil expression. Attendants al¬ 
 ways carefully washed the remains of recently 
 departed friends ; for a body so often sanctified 
 in life, should return to the bosom of its mo¬ 
 ther earth cleansed from every stain. Among 
 many instances of this practice we have that of 
 Charlemagne, the great Christian emperor. 
 Indeed, it was looked upon as a great misfor¬ 
 tune to be buried without this purification. 
 When practicable, the body was embalmed in 
 imitation of Our Lord, wrapped up in a white 
 linen sheet and other stuffs more or less costly. 
 St. Jerome tells us that devotedness to the 
 dead sometimes exceeded the bounds of Chris¬ 
 tian moderation. Yet when confined within 
 just limits, especially in the case of persons 
 representing God, the Church never found 
 fault. 
 
 Let me mention some other modes of 
 showing respect to human remains, and they 
 will prove, more and more fully, that the way 
 our ancestors had of treating their dead was 
 the very opposite to that of the infidels. 
 The body, placed in the coffin, was exposed 
 at the door of the house. This custom, 
 which existed among the Greeks and Ro¬ 
 mans, is still followed by the Parisians. As 
 you pass by the dwelling where death has 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. i 5 3 
 
 entered, you perceive in the porch, a small 
 chapel in which, surrounded by lighted ta¬ 
 pers, lies the coffin with the never-forgotten 
 vessel of holy-water by its side. Ancient 
 liturgists thus explain this custom which 
 has for centuries been a very important part 
 of a Parisian’s religion. “ The remains of 
 the dead are thus exposed, in order to warn 
 the heedless passers-by of the uncertainty of 
 life and the certainty of death, and also to im¬ 
 plore their pious prayers for the faithful de¬ 
 parted.” It is but fair to add that no one, not 
 even an “enlightened animat ,” passes the cha¬ 
 pel or meets a funeral without sprinkling holy- 
 water, making the sign of the cross, or at 
 least lifting the hat. Another custom, equal¬ 
 ly ancient in the Church, is to always place 
 the bodies of deceased persons in coffins 
 made of wood. St. Ambrose tells us that 
 this custom is indicative of hope in a future 
 resurrection ; for although wood had previous¬ 
 ly no special signification, it became from the 
 time that our Lord used it in His crucifixion 
 in order to conquer death, a symbol of life. 
 
 I will mention in conclusion but two other cus¬ 
 toms. The members of some religious or¬ 
 ders bury their dead in a bed of flowers, and 
 I know a community of nuns, founded as early 
 
154 77 ^ Christian Cemetery. 
 
 as the sixth century, whose rule and custom 
 it is to reverently kiss the feet of a deceased 
 sister, before consigning her remains to the 
 grave. It is unnecessary to add that all these 
 practices still exist in truly Christian coun¬ 
 tries, and that it is much to be desired to see 
 them reestablished wherever they have fallen 
 into disuse. 
 
 Coming back to the cemetery question, I 
 ask; Is it to be wondered at, that the Church 
 uses so much solemnity in blessing the place 
 where Christian bodies are to rest ? No, my 
 dear friend, we should not be astonished at 
 that, but we may well be astonished, confound¬ 
 ed, grieved, and overwhelmed with distress, at 
 seeing the great want of respect among the 
 living, for their own bodies, and how easily 
 and carelessly men who are slaves of passion, 
 defile and profane their own or those of their 
 fellow-creatures. In fear and trembling, I 
 would recall to their minds these divine 
 words : “ Man, when he was in honor, did not 
 understand : he is compared to senseless 
 beasts, and is become like to them.'’ I fear 
 for their salvation, for God will not fail to pun¬ 
 ish the desecrators of His temples: “ But if 
 any man violate the temple of God, him shall 
 God destroy,” says St. Paul. (i. Cor. 3 : 17.) 
 
SIXTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 One more Reason why the Church blesses her Cemete¬ 
 ries—Second Sermon preached by the Cemetery : 
 Doctrine of Universal Brotherhood—Interments 
 within Church Edifices—Words of St. Chrysostom. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 In our day of gross sensuality, man is rap¬ 
 idly losing sight of the respect due to his body. 
 In the hope of awakening him to a sense of 
 duty on this essential point of Christian, so¬ 
 cial, and physical life, I will adduce one 
 more reason why the Church blesses her ce¬ 
 meteries ; and one which, while including all 
 the preceding, displays most brilliantly the 
 faith of our holy mother, the Church, and her 
 profound respect for the bodies of her children. 
 
 She blesses her cemeteries, then, to mani¬ 
 fest her respect for the bodies of the faithful; 
 bodies which the Apostle Paul calls tem¬ 
 ples of the Holy Ghost, and members of Jesus 
 
156 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Christ. These members having been sancti¬ 
 fied and dedicated to God in baptism, by holy 
 anointings and by the Blessed Eucharist, it is 
 right and proper that they should be laid in 
 holy ground. If, in obedience to the sen¬ 
 tence pronounced by God against disobedient 
 creatures, they must return to dust, it is only 
 to await a glorious resurrection to a better ex¬ 
 istence in heaven. They belong to souls who 
 are already enjoying the beatific vision of 
 God in the city of the saints. 
 
 It is true the Church places upon her altars 
 for our veneration, the relics of those only, 
 whose holiness of life has been fully proved 
 by miracles. Still, the bodies of those faith¬ 
 ful who have died in the state of grace, and 
 consequently are destined to attain certain 
 glory in heaven, doubtless have a share in 
 that veneration which we pay to the precious 
 remains of God’s servants, and may, in a cer¬ 
 tain sense, be termed “ sacred relics.” Their 
 resting-place, therefore, ought to be holy. 
 
 Now, my dear Frederic, recall to mind my 
 preceding letters, and tell me are we not 
 justified in having our cemeteries blessed? 
 Tell me, too, whether there is any other more 
 eloquent mode, than that employed by the 
 cemetery of proclaiming the sanctity of our 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 157 
 
 body, or of more successfully refuting the de¬ 
 grading doctrines of the infidels, according to 
 whom we are but lumps of earth. 
 
 Let us now hear the second sermon that 
 the cemetery preaches ; “ On the doctrine of 
 universal and eternal brotherhood.” 
 
 On this subject, our great preacher is equal¬ 
 ly successful. His pulpit and his subject are 
 closely identified—indeed, they are both one 
 and the same thing. Does death sever all 
 ties between those who have departed from 
 this life, and those who yet remain ? Nature 
 answers, Yes: faith says, No, and says it by 
 the voice of the cemetery. In order that all, 
 young and old, rich and poor, may hear this 
 voice, the cemetery is placed near the church. 
 Here, owing to its very position, it talks to us 
 night and day on the consoling doctrine of 
 the communion of saints; a doctrine as uni¬ 
 versal and as ancient as Christianity itself. 
 In thus placing our tomb and our cradle side 
 * by side, the Church succeeds in making us 
 think of the dead, and in helping them by our 
 prayers ; as also in making us profit by the 
 lessons which they give forth in solemn si¬ 
 lence ; in a word, she keeps the living and 
 the dead in close contact, so that we may 
 minister to their relief, and they may contri- 
 
158 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 bute to our encouragement and consolation. 
 Lef me develop this thought in a few words. 
 The cemetery is situated close to the church, 
 in order that we may not forget the dead, or 
 be ourselves forgotten by those who will sur¬ 
 vive us. In order to discharge the important 
 duty of praying for the dead, we must first 
 think about them. Just to effect this remem¬ 
 brance, and to make it continual, the cemetery 
 is always near the spot where the whole par¬ 
 ish assembles on Sundays and holy days. Re¬ 
 move the cemetery out of sight, and what will 
 be the result? As I have already said, the 
 dead will be speedily forgotten. 
 
 Now, it is a bad sign for parish, family, or 
 child to forget its dead. This forgetfulness is 
 base ingratitude, for we are indebted to our 
 dead for many things, even for life itself. It 
 is a misfortune for ourselves ; for the memory 
 of departed friends often becomes the founda¬ 
 tion of a spiritual fortune for the living. How 
 frequently do the last words of an expiring fa¬ 
 ther, or the dying admonition of a loving and 
 beloved mother become to us a beacon- light 
 to guide us safely through the journey of life ! 
 I appeal, my dear friend, to your own experi¬ 
 ence. Is there any thing that we would more 
 speedily lose than the memories of our depart- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 159 
 
 ed brethren, were they not buried in a place 
 where we may see their graves every time we 
 go to worship God? Take them out of our 
 sight, and in vain will the poor souls cry out 
 in their loneliness, “ Have pity on us, have 
 pity, you who were once our friends and 
 neighbors.” 
 
 As a just retribution, God will permit us to 
 be treated as we have treated others. If we 
 forget our departed brethren, we in our turn 
 will be forgotten by those who survive us. No 
 prayer will be uttered over our grave to shorten 
 our time of suffering. No tear will fall upon 
 its turf to cool the flames of purgatory. 
 
 The cemetery is placed near the church, 
 moreover, to give lessons of wisdom to the 
 living. What better preparation for the wor¬ 
 ship of God on Sunday, than to pass near the 
 dead on our way to the house of prayer ? The 
 very sight of this small portion of the earth, 
 where rich and poor lie side by side; where 
 we see the mounds heaving upon the bosoms 
 of our friends and relations ; the sight of the 
 spot where we shall one day be laid, must all 
 necessarily give rise in our hearts to serious 
 thought. Now, serious thought is akin. to 
 pious thought, and pious thought is the life 
 and soul of prayer. 
 
160 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 It is thus that the cemetery, when adjoining 
 the church, constantly preaches the doctrine 
 of universal and everlasting brotherhood: 
 “ Living and dead, you are still but one family.” 
 The Church upon earth and the Church in 
 purgatory can not be separated by the hand 
 of death. The most intimate and tender 
 relations will continue to bind them together, 
 till the dawning of that day on which, united 
 in each other’s embrace, they will both be 
 merged into the Church triumphant. 
 
 The Church has been extremely solicitous 
 to keep alive this doctrine of universal brother¬ 
 hood, of true Christian charity, among mem¬ 
 bers of the human family. Looking upon it 
 as the foundation of Christianity, the keystone 
 in the arch of human society, the principle of 
 all virtue, she has set it up before the eyes of 
 our soul as well as of our body, by her prac- 
 tice of joining the cemetery with the church. 
 Her intention was always plain to her child¬ 
 ren, and they responded faithfully. You 
 know that the earliest Christian burials took 
 place in the galleries and chapels of the cata¬ 
 combs, where divine service was held. 
 
 It was a source of great comfort to our 
 worthy ancestors to know that, after death, 
 they would rest near the holy martyrs, or 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 161 
 
 better yet, near the Holy of Holies each day de¬ 
 scending upon the altar, or perhaps remaining 
 there continually in the Blessed Sacrament. 
 To be in such blessed company was considered 
 by the early Christians a bond of charity and 
 a safe protection against evil spirits, whilst at 
 the same time it gratified their tender affections 
 toward those whom they had loved in life. 
 “ Lovely and comely in their life, even in death 
 they were not divided.” (n. Kings 1:23.) 
 
 The Church did not forget, in the days of 
 her prosperity, her pious practices during the 
 first three centuries of poverty and persecu¬ 
 tion. Her children, faithful imitators of their 
 zealous fathers, continued to bury their de¬ 
 ceased brethren near the churches, and some¬ 
 times within them. The practice of burying 
 within the sacred edifices was, however, dis¬ 
 continued at an early day, especially among 
 the Orientals. Thus, Constantine was not 
 buried within the walls, but in the porch of 
 the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. A t 
 which St. Chrysostom remarked, “ Emperors 
 discharge, in the home of the sinner, the 
 duties discharged by the porters in the palace 
 of the Caesars.”* 
 
 *Quod Christus sit Deus, n. 9, p. 697, opp., and 1. Pars 
 altera, edit. Gaume. 
 
162 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 In the West, too, interments in churches 
 were generally prohibited, although exceptions 
 were occasionally made in favor of bishops* 
 abbots, distinguished members of the higher 
 clergy, princes, and founders of churches.* 
 Little by little, the primitive practice was re¬ 
 vived ; so after some years no distinction was 
 made. Rome herself set the example of bury¬ 
 ing all classes of Christians, who had died in 
 her communion, in the churches; and her 
 eldest daughter, France, faithfully followed in 
 her footsteps, down to the period of the 
 revolution, in the last century. Where the 
 churches, cloisters, and chapels were not 
 ample enough to receive all the population, 
 care was taken to gratify the desire of the 
 faithful, by providing grounds as near the 
 church as possible, and devoting them to 
 burial purposes. 
 
 In the early ages of Christianity, as the 
 pagan towns but recently converted to 
 Christianity had no room near their temples 
 for the purpose, cemeteries were established 
 near the approaches to the towns. This fact 
 we learn from St. Chrysostom, who informs 
 us that “ The tombs or monuments of the 
 dead stand on the roadside, near the entrance 
 
 * Cone, de Mayence, 813, c. 55 ; de Meaux, 845, c. 72. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 163 
 
 to the cities, like teachers of humility and 
 preachers on human littleness. The traveler 
 just before entering a proud city, where the 
 great and the wealthy of this world live in 
 luxury, meets, at the gates, this grim monitor, 
 warning him of his future dissolution, and 
 then proceeds to visit the wonders of the 
 town.”* 
 
 We shall see in our next letter how this 
 practice fell into disuse. 
 
 *Ecloga de Morte, et alibi, De Fide et Lege. 
 
 < 
 
SEVENTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Interments around Churches—Within Cities—Decree of 
 the Council of Rome—Blessing of Cemeteries very 
 ancient—Practice in the Sixth Century—The Ceme¬ 
 tery teaching, by means of the Burial Ceremonies, 
 One Brotherhood among Men—Historical Facts. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 I have already stated that the custom of 
 burying at the entrance to the towns was not 
 of long duration, at least among Christians. 
 In the first place, the towns, growing, soon took 
 these burial-places within their boundaries; 
 and besides, pieces of land were secured near 
 the churches by purchase or donation, and in 
 these were laid the bodies of the faithful de¬ 
 parted. Thenceforward, the cemeteries were 
 public and above ground. 
 
 I doubt whether a single city or town, built 
 in Europe during the past fifteen hundred 
 years, had not its cemetery near the church, 
 
The Christian Cemetery. 165 
 
 or, as in Rome and France, in the vaults be¬ 
 neath. There were several celebrated ceme¬ 
 teries in Paris; among others, “ The Holy 
 Innocents,” “ St. Sulpice,” and “ St. Medard,” 
 while her catacombs contain millions of mortal 
 remains, so that, in making excavations, bones . 
 are met in every quarter. This fact will not 
 surprise you ; for you know that around every 
 new church which was built, a large tract of 
 land was set apart and used for the interment 
 of the congregation attending it. I would add 
 that these grounds were held to be so sacred 
 that they served and were recognized as 
 Sanctuaries , or places of refuge into which the 
 civil law dare not follow the criminal. 
 
 A celebrated council held at Rome under 
 Pope Nicholas II., in 1059, directs that about 
 two hundred feet square be set apart near each 
 large church, and half that space near every 
 smaller one, to receive the bodies of the 
 deceased members of the congregation. After 
 asserting that this practice was followed by 
 the fathers in very early times, it threatens 
 with excommunication any one presuming to 
 violate these holy places.* As a result of this 
 councils decree, you will find, that there is 
 not an old parish-church in Europe to-day, 
 
 *Apud Hard. Act. Cone. vi. 1058. 
 
166 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 without its contiguous cemetery. And it is 
 this venerable institution that modern im¬ 
 piety seeks to destroy! 
 
 The origin of blessing cemeteries dates 
 back to the dim twilight of Christianity. It 
 is at least as old as church-consecration, from 
 which it takes its rise. Canon law has ever 
 taught that the cemetery adjacent to the 
 church is consecrated by the consecration of 
 the church itself. This seems quite natural; 
 for in consecrating the church, many outside 
 benedictions and sprinklings are performed 
 over the exterior walls and the grounds on 
 which the building is reared.* 
 
 If, in some exceptional case, the cemetery 
 was detached and distant from the church, 
 recourse was had to a separate consecration. 
 We find an instance of this in the sixth cen¬ 
 tury. The abbess of a convent in Poitiers, 
 having been deputed to superintend the obse¬ 
 quies of Radegunda, Queen of France, anx¬ 
 iously inquires how she is to discharge her 
 duty properly, if the bishop, who was absent, 
 could not get back in time to consecrate the 
 burial-place which had not even been bless¬ 
 ed.! 
 
 * Mand. de Monseignor Malou, Bishop of Bruges, 
 f Greg. Tur. De Gloria Confess, c. cvi. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 167 
 
 The cemetery also teaches a common broth¬ 
 erhood through the rites and ceremonies to be 
 performed before we are admitted into its pre¬ 
 cincts, and also by its manner of receiving us. 
 If, as the “ solidaires” pretend, man were but a 
 soulless clod of earth, and his corpse a mere 
 mass of vile matter in a state of decomposi¬ 
 tion, it should be thrown without delay into 
 some sewer or sink. But such is not the be¬ 
 lief of the human race. See, my dear friend, 
 what takes place among Catholics, who, you 
 know, are just as virtuous and enlightened as 
 any other people, if not more so. As soon 
 as death has seized a member, a marked mani¬ 
 festation of the indissoluble union between 
 living and dead immediately takes place in a 
 variety of ways. No sooner is the person dead, 
 than his body becomes sacred. A brother 
 has left us, but he is not annihilated. He is 
 approached in religious silence. Night and 
 day, persons watch in prayer around the cof¬ 
 fin. When it is time to carry him to the 
 church,* it is the priest who gives the order of 
 removal, and then precedes the corpse to the 
 foot of the altar. Relations, friends, and 
 neighbors follow in solemn procession, with 
 prayer and hymn, sighs and tears. The 
 Church then employs the mysterious pomp of 
 
168 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 most expressive ceremony, as well to honor 
 the dead as to instruct the living. 
 
 You know, my dear friend, that these mys¬ 
 terious ceremonies, which were abolished by 
 Protestants, are of venerable antiquity, dating 
 back to the beginning of Christianitv. Before 
 proving this truth, I shall say a few words 
 about carrying the corpse, and one or two 
 about the catafalque. 
 
 It is customary now, especially in the cities, 
 to have the body carried in a hearse ; like so 
 much merchandise or freight on a cart. This 
 custom was not known to our forefathers. 
 They looked upon it as an honor and a work of 
 mercy to render this last service of carrying 
 a deceased friend. The example of Tobias, 
 who was so highly praised in Holy Scripture, 
 and so handsomely rewarded, gave rise to, and 
 encouraged, this pious custom. So strictly 
 was it observed that the body of St. Bruno, 
 Archbishop of Cologne, was carried in this 
 way, by hand, from Rheims to Cologne, a 
 journey of eight full days.* It was by rare 
 exception that a corpse was transported on 
 wheels. Would that it were ever so ! As an 
 evidence that the pious customs of a Catholic 
 people can not be entirely and at once oblite- 
 
 * In Vit. apud Surium, n Octob. 
 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 169 
 
 rated, a vestige of the ancient mode of carry¬ 
 ing a corpse may be seen in the present fash¬ 
 ion, whose meaning but few understand, of 
 the mourners holding cords and tassels de¬ 
 pending from the hearse. 
 
 The catafalque, or castrum dotoris, perpe¬ 
 tuates another traditionary usage. This 
 empty tomb, into which the coffin is put dur¬ 
 ing the divine office, is a memento of the cus¬ 
 tom of burying in the churches. The large 
 white cross, worked upon the black pall, is an 
 emblem of hope in immortality amid the very 
 gloom of death.* 
 
 I shall now speak of the antiquity of our 
 funeral service. “ How far from the true and 
 beautiful,” says the learned Duranti, “ are those 
 who despise and reject our funeral rites! 
 From the foundation of Christianity, our an¬ 
 cestors have taught us how to bury the bodies 
 of Christians with uniform ceremony, and to 
 embellish their obsequies with every mark of 
 respect; for these bodies have been the home 
 of immortal souls/'t 
 
 Pope St. Clement orders that the dead be 
 carefully buried, their obsequies respectfully 
 performed, and alms distributed in their 
 
 * Encyclop. Theol. v. Sepulture, 
 f De Rit. etc. p. 1S2. 
 
i 70 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 name.* “ We have been taught,” says Origen, 
 “to honor the soul gifted with reason, by con¬ 
 signing honorably to its grave the body which 
 had served it.”f 
 
 St. Jerome adds, “ We need not wonder that 
 the obsequies of Moses and Aaron were cele¬ 
 brated, according to ancient custom, with 
 much pomp of ceremony; for we behold, in 
 the full light of the Gospel, as recorded in the 
 Acts of the Apostles, the brethren of Jerusa¬ 
 lem giving orders for St. Stephens funeral, 
 and making ‘great mourning over him.’ You 
 may be sure that this great mourning consist¬ 
 ed not in sighs and tears, but in the pomp of 
 the funeral and in the multitude of persons 
 assisting.”^ 
 
 To add to the solemnity of a funeral service, 
 our ancestors in the faith employed torches, 
 incense, music, and the tolling of bells. I shall 
 speak of these more at length, when treating 
 on the resurrection of the body, as preached 
 by the cemetery. All these rites, so useful to 
 the dead, were for our forefathers, as they are 
 for ourselves, a source of much consolation to 
 the living. Hence their deep distress when 
 
 * Epist. I. ad Jacob. Frat. Dom. 
 
 \ Contr. Cels. lib. vi. and via. 
 
 J Epist. ad Paulam, De Obitu Blesillae. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 171 
 
 prohibited to chant at a funeral. ‘'Who can 
 recall to mind,” says Victor, Bishop of Utica, 
 “without shedding tears, the occasion when 
 the tyrant compelled us to follow our dead 
 to the grave in silence, without even the chant¬ 
 ing of a hymn ?” # Long before the hour of 
 interment, touching evidences of fraternal cha¬ 
 rity were made manifest: they began on the 
 preceding evening. During the night, the of¬ 
 fice called the vigils, or watchings, was chant¬ 
 ed not only in the churches, but also in the 
 mortuary chamber itself. In memory of this 
 old custom, the office is still sung on the eve 
 of a funeral in the diocese of Besan9on. 
 
 I will conclude with two remarkable exam¬ 
 ples. The body of the Emperor Constantine 
 was carried to the tomb on a bier of state, co¬ 
 vered with flowers, amid burning torches and 
 the chanting of hymns. “ Never,” says Eu¬ 
 sebius, “ since the beginning of the world was 
 witnessed such magnificence.”! 
 
 The funeral of St. Germain, Bishop of 
 Auxerre, was a grand triumphal march. This 
 illustrious prelate, having died at Ravenna, 
 his body was carried to Auxerre, a distance of 
 six hundred miles, accompanied by a large 
 
 * De Persecut. Vandalor. lib. i. 
 f Euseb. in Vita Constan. lib. iv. c. Ixiii. 
 
17 2 The Christian Cemetery. 
 
 concourse of persons. All along the route 
 the greatest respect was evinced by the peo¬ 
 ple, who came out to level the roads and build 
 special bridges. The air resounded with the 
 voices of the chanters, was redolent with in¬ 
 cense, and at night, the darkness was dispelled 
 by the light of countless torches. 
 
 At the ordinary funeral service, the priest, 
 after having performed the “ Libera,” gives 
 the signal for departure, by intoning the beau¬ 
 tiful and consoling antiphon: “ May the an¬ 
 gels conduct thee to Paradise; at thy coming 
 may the angels meet thee, and lead thee into 
 the heavenly city of Jerusalem.” During the 
 singing of these last words, and on the conclu¬ 
 sion of the above ceremonies, all of which are 
 so many undoubted evidences of respectful 
 
 ■N 
 
 affection for the deceased, and a solemn ac¬ 
 knowledgment of the undying fraternal chari¬ 
 ty between the living and dead, the cemetery, 
 at last, admits the sacred deposit, confided to 
 its care until the day of resurrection. 
 
 What a contrast between Catholic burial 
 and the brutal proceedings of the “ soli- 
 daires”! Let us congratulate ourselves on 
 being children of the Church, while we pray 
 for those who are not, or who, having been, 
 are no longer such. 
 
 o 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 
 
 Third Sermon of the Cemetery : The Existence and Im¬ 
 mortality of the Soul—The Cemetery blessed out 
 of Regard for the Human Body—The Body of Man 
 sanctified by the Soul—Ceremonies preceding Inter¬ 
 ment—Dialogue between the Living and the Dead— 
 The Libera—Alms—Decorations—Position of the 
 Corpse—The Cross. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 We have already listened to two sermons 
 preached to us by the cemetery, on the Sanc¬ 
 tity of the human body , and on the Brother¬ 
 hood of the children of God on both sides of the 
 grave. I have listened to many orators, but 
 in my opinion, no one ever preached these 
 fundamental truths with equal power. In 
 the two following sermons, its eloquence 
 will be no less impressive and plain. We are 
 going to hear all about the immortality of the 
 soul and the resurrection of the flesh. You 
 will admit that in point of sublimity, impor¬ 
 tance, and practical utility, no better subject 
 could be chosen. 
 
i 74 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 “ If you inquire,” says the cemetery, “ why 
 I have been so solemnly consecrated and 
 hedged in with so much reverence, I reply 
 that I am a reliquary designed to receive 
 something holy. This holy and thrice holy 
 relic is your body. As I am sanctified by a 
 body, the body is sanctified by the soul. The 
 body has been a temple, a sanctuary, a reli¬ 
 quary occupied by the soul, which is the living 
 image of the God of all sanctity.” To the 
 cemetery, therefore, the human body is not 
 what it is to the “ solidaire,” a clod of mean 
 earth. That the body is purified and sancti¬ 
 fied by prayer and holy rite out of regard to 
 the soul, is clear from the meaning of the 
 prayers and ceremonies employed before it is 
 carried to the grave. It is time for me to re¬ 
 deem my promise of explaining some of these. 
 The corpse is laid upon the catafalque in the 
 church. Around this catafalque, you see 
 burning tapers, while the holy-water vase 
 stands at the foot. The smoke of incense 
 rises, as prayers are poured forth, and soon 
 the hymn is intoned, awakening in our souls 
 ineffable emotions of mingled joy and sad¬ 
 ness. What does all this mean ? 
 
 St. Chrysostom replies : “ What mean these 
 torches whose brightness delights my eyes ? 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 175 
 
 They tell us that we are escorting our dead, 
 as if they wel*e athletes coming forth victori¬ 
 ous from the combat. What mean these 
 chants ? In them we glorify God, and thank 
 Him ior having given the crown to him who 
 has just left us, for having delivered him from 
 all the ills of life, and for having placed him 
 near Himself, beyond the reach of fear. Is not 
 this good cause for our hymns and psalms ? 
 Are they not proofs of our happiness and joy ? 
 Why should there be tears and lamentations 
 in the presence of immortality ?” # 
 
 How absurd this illumination, how unmean¬ 
 ing these joyous canticles, if man had no soul; 
 or if the soul did not survive the body ; or if, 
 as infidels pretend, the body had been and 
 still were a mere clod of earth ! 
 
 The prayers, incense, and holy-water have 
 their meaning too. “ It is certain,” says St. 
 Athanasius, “ that if the dead were not bene¬ 
 fited thereby, we should cease to honor them 
 by mementoes in the holy sacrifice, and by the 
 cares of sepulture. But our very eyes tell us 
 the contrary. When the vine on the distant 
 hill-side begins to blossom, the wine in your 
 cellars is conscious of the blossoming, and 
 
 * Homil. iv. in Epist. ad Hebr. n. 5, opp. t. xii. pars prior, p. 
 66, edit. Gaume. 
 
i 76 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 sensitive to its influence. Thus material things 
 of earth give us an idea how the souls of sin¬ 
 ners are affected favorably by the unbloody 
 sacrifice.”* In these words, the great doctor 
 interprets the universal faith. You know that 
 praying for the dead is as ancient as the world 
 itself, and as widespread as is the human family. 
 It is practiced even by pagan savages. This 
 you will soon see, as we develop one more 
 proof of the indestructible faith of all nations 
 in the existence and immortality of the soul. 
 
 Nothing could be more touchingly expres¬ 
 sive than the Catholic funeral-prayers. First, 
 we hear the voice of the dead issuing from 
 the coffin : “ Deliver me, O Lord! from eter¬ 
 nal death, on that dreadful day, when the hea¬ 
 vens and the earth shall be moved, and Thou 
 shalt come to judge the world by fire. I 
 tremble and am seized with the fear of judg¬ 
 ment and of the wrath to come.”t 
 
 The living respond, “Yes, when the hea¬ 
 vens and the earth shall be moved.” This 
 inimitable dialogue continues. The deceased 
 says, “ That day of wrath and misery, that 
 great day of calamity and bitterness.” The liv¬ 
 ing respond, “ When thou shalt come to judge 
 
 * De Variis Qusest. Qiuest 34. 
 
 f Roman Ritual. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 177 
 
 the world by fire.” * The voice of the dead is 
 stilled, while all the living send up to the sov¬ 
 ereign Judge this supplication for mercy: 
 “ Eternal rest give unto him, O Lord! and let 
 perpetual light shine upon him.” To help 
 obtain this ineffable happiness, the priest uses 
 incense and holy-water. Making the cir¬ 
 cuit of the catafalque, he sprinkles the coffin, 
 and then incenses it. By the holy-water, so 
 formidable to the devil, he drives away those 
 evil spirits who so often practice their fury 
 against the body of the departed, in order to 
 injure in death what they could not harm in 
 life. Incense, the emblem of prayer, recalls 
 the good works of the dead person, and re¬ 
 minds us of the efficacy of the prayers of the 
 living in behalf of the dead. Christians of 
 every age have recognized in the mingling of 
 incense and holy-water, another sign of the 
 union between the living and the dead. 
 
 These highly instructive ceremonies and 
 tender prayers compose the service of the 
 “ Libera,” a word which means deliverance, 
 severance of all the bonds which could chain 
 down the soul of the deceased ; and freedom 
 from all those powerful enemies which could 
 prevent the body from resting in peace. The 
 Libera concludes by a prayer in which the 
 
178 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 priest reminds the Almighty that it is His pro¬ 
 vince to be merciful, to spare, and to pardon ; 
 humbly conjuring Him to receive in His infi¬ 
 nite mercy this soul whose exile is just over, 
 and to introduce it into the company of the 
 angels of heaven, there to enjoy eternal hap¬ 
 piness forever. 
 
 Where can you find, my dear Frederic, a 
 plainer and more eloquent demonstration of 
 the Catholic faith in the existence and immor¬ 
 tality of the soul ? This faith is further evi¬ 
 denced by the alms contributed in behalf of 
 the deceased, by the crowns of immortelles 
 placed on the tomb, the evergreens plant¬ 
 ed in the ground, and also by the very posi¬ 
 tion of the body in the grave. According 
 to Catholic custom, the face should be up¬ 
 ward, looking heavenward, the head to the 
 West and the feet to die East; meaning 
 that by occupying this position, die de¬ 
 ceased professed his hopes, prays, and is 
 ready to leave the West and march toward 
 the East. 
 
 Finally, the cross standing at the head of 
 his grave, erect like the great mast of a ship 
 submerged beneath the sea, but not entirely 
 broken up, proclaims that death is not a com¬ 
 plete shipwreck of man ; that life dwells in 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 179 
 
 the tomb, guarded by God, who will bring it 
 forth to light on the last day. 
 
 I can not bring this letter to a close in any 
 more appropriate way than by exclaiming with 
 you: What an admirable preacher the ceme¬ 
 tery is! 
 
NINETEENTH LETTER. 
 
 All the Prayers for the Dead proclaim the Immortal¬ 
 ity of the Soul—Prayers on the Third, Seventh, 
 Thirtieth, and Fortieth Days—Anniversary Services 
 —The Dead aware of our Prayers—Catholic Teach¬ 
 ing. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 As we have just seen, all the prayers for 
 the dead proclaim belief in the immortality of 
 the soul. Among Catholics, these prayers do 
 not cease with the closing of the grave. They 
 are renewed and repeated at stated periods, 
 fixed by venerable tradition : indeed, they are 
 continual. These periods are the third, 
 seventh, thirtieth, and fortieth days after death, 
 and the anniversary. What is the meaning 
 of choosing these fixed days ? The answer to 
 this question will be the subject of the present 
 letter. But first, a few words about the Office 
 for the Dead, that ancient rite so replete with 
 holy recollections, and dating its origin back 
 to the Old Testament. When Jacob died, 
 
The Christian Cemetery . 181 
 
 \ 
 
 Joseph and his brethren, accompanied by a 
 great concourse of the Egyptians, brought his 
 father’s body to Hebron. Great mourning, 
 however, had been held previously in Egypt 
 for the space of forty days, which was repeated 
 for the space of seven days at the threshing- 
 floor of Atad, beyond the Jordan. This great 
 and vehement mourning means not only weep¬ 
 ing and lamenting, but the prayers and sacri¬ 
 fices offered in favor of the dead. 
 
 The same thing was done at the death of 
 Moses, Aaron, and their sister Miriam. It 
 would be wrong to suppose that these are 
 isolated cases in the history of God’s people. 
 You know that these functions were continued 
 from age to age, down to the time of the Macha- 
 bees. Such is the biblical authorization of 
 our Office for the Dead. Under the new law, 
 we are indebted for this office, in its primitive 
 form, to the Apostles themselves, and, in its 
 more finished and perfect form, to Origen, 
 one of the most venerable and learned fathers 
 of the early Church. We find a peculiarity 
 in this office which does not exist in any 
 other. Although it has its first vespers, it 
 has no second ; meaning by this, that the office 
 can recognize but one period of time for man 
 without hinting at the beginning of another; 
 
182 
 
 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 for the bodies of the saints being once deliver¬ 
 ed from pain, are delivered for all eternity. 
 
 Why, my dear Frederic, are we not better 
 acquainted with the meaning of most of the 
 institutions and practices of the Church ? 
 Why do so many Christians live and die in 
 ignorance of the most of them ? Where could 
 the clergy find a more prolific source of tender 
 and practical instructions, both for themselves 
 and the people, than in frequent explanation 
 of these ancient and highly instructive rites ? 
 But why look for impossibilities ? This de¬ 
 plorable ignorance is at once the necessary 
 and inevitable result of our pagan education, 
 and a practical proof of its pernicious effects, 
 even upon the clergy. 
 
 Let us now consider the days appointed by 
 the Church for the solemn repetition of the 
 Office for the Dead. The first in turn is the 
 “ third day,” chosen with a view of remind¬ 
 ing us of the three days passed by Our Lord 
 in the sepulchre, ending with the third 
 glorious day of His resurrection, a day full of 
 hope and consolation for us. The “ seventh 
 day,” uniting the Old and New Testament, 
 and replete with recollections of remotest 
 antiquity, gives rise to an act of religion that 
 dates from the beginning of time. Its obser- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 183 
 
 vance supplies us with abundant instruction. 
 We celebrate the office, then, on the seventh 
 day, if not on each of the seven, after the 
 example of the sons of Jacob, who mourned 
 their father during seven days. Another 
 reason for the recital of these “seventh day” 
 prayers is to obtain for the deceased the re¬ 
 mission of all the sins committed during his 
 whole life, and symbolized by the length of 
 time expended in the creation, that is, seven 
 days, ending of course with the seventh day 
 of rest. 
 
 The observance of the “ thirtieth day” is 
 equally venerable for its traditions, and equally 
 important by reason of its aims and intentions. 
 It is in accordance, then, with the spirit of our 
 mother, the Church, that we celebrate mass for 
 the dead during the thirty days immediately 
 succeeding the day of death, and also on the 
 thirtieth day itself. One reason for this obser¬ 
 vance is to perpetuate the remembrance of the 
 thirty days’ mourning over Jacob by his sons, 
 and over Moses and Aaron by the Israelites. 
 The second reason is, because three times ten 
 are thirty. The number three signifies the 
 Blessed Trinity, and the number ten the pre¬ 
 cepts of the decalogue. We pray, therefore, 
 three times ten days for the dead, in order to 
 
184 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 obtain for them, through divine mercy, remis¬ 
 sion of all their sins against the Holy Trinity, 
 and against the precepts of the decalogue.* 
 
 The “ fortieth day ” represents the forty 
 hours that our Lord remained in the sepul¬ 
 chre previous to His resurrection. It also 
 gives expression to the ardent desires of all 
 the living faithful to see their departed breth¬ 
 ren come forth one day gloriously from the 
 tomb as did the First-born among the dead. 
 
 The “ anniversary” is a day no less scru¬ 
 pulously observed, and no less sacred than 
 the others just mentioned. Most Catholics 
 observe it by having a special mass offered 
 up, reciting various prayers, and giving alms. 
 Like the others, it is founded in the affection 
 entertained by the living for the dead, and is 
 eminently useful to both. 
 
 Thus, one year after the death of our friends, 
 we pray that their years of exile may be 
 replaced by endless years of happiness in 
 heaven. As we celebrate the annual festivals 
 of the saints, both to honor them, and to rouse 
 ourselves to an imitation of their virtues, so do 
 we keep sacred the anniversaries of our dead 
 in order to assist them, and to awaken our 
 own devotion toward them. Finally, we offer 
 
 * Cornel, a Lapide 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 185 
 
 these annual prayers, because, as St. Augustine 
 says, “ Not knowing with certainty the condi¬ 
 tion of our friends in the other world, we pre¬ 
 fer to do too much for them rather than too 
 little:’ 
 
 Is there any thing more commendable, my 
 dear Frederic, than this observance of certain 
 days, set apart ages ago, for the express pur¬ 
 pose of bringing relief to the suffering souls 
 in purgatory ? As they come along at stated 
 intervals on the journey of life, they seem as 
 so many preachers who unite their voices with 
 that of the cemetery, to proclaim the immor¬ 
 tality of the soul. Even the pagans who lived 
 before Christ had special prayers for their 
 dead on the third, seventh, ninth, twentieth, 
 thirtieth, and fortieth days after their death. 
 Misguided by the arch-enemy of truth, these 
 people built up a temple of superstition on an 
 old foundation of truth. As soon as Chris¬ 
 tianity came into the world, she reclaimed 
 her property and divested it of all heathen 
 impurities. 
 
 It may be, useful before closing this letter 
 to elucidate a question connected naturally 
 with our subject. It is this: Are the dead 
 cognizant of our prayers ? An affirmative 
 answer to this question may be found in the 
 
186 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 article of faith which we pronounce every day, 
 “ I believe in the communion of saints.” Al¬ 
 though the faithful departed have left this 
 earth, they have not ceased to live, nor have 
 they ceased to be members of the Church. 
 There are three dwelling-places for the large 
 family of the Heavenly Father—the earth, 
 purgatory, and heaven. The inhabitants are 
 united by the golden chains of indissoluble 
 brotherhood. This union, being founded on 
 charity, becomes practical in the assistance 
 that one branch affords to the other. The 
 saints pray for us, and we pray for the souls in 
 purgatory, who, in their turn, will repay us 
 with interest for all that we do for them. 
 This is an article of our faith. 
 
 But how can the souls in purgatory know 
 any thing about our prayers ? Catholic theo¬ 
 logy replies, “ The departed souls have four 
 ways of knowing what good works we do in 
 their behalf. First, by direct revelation from 
 God; secondly, through the ministry of an¬ 
 gels ; thirdly, through the reports brought to 
 them by the countless souls arriving every 
 minute in purgatory, from all parts of the 
 globe; and fourthly, by the very perceptible 
 decrease in their sufferings.’* * As we know 
 
 * St. Thomas, i p. q. 89, article 8. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 187 
 
 that the lost souls in hell are ignorant of what 
 is going on among the living, except as God 
 may permit them, now and then, to catch a 
 glimpse of earth; so, too, the souls in purga¬ 
 tory, as they do not yet enjoy the beatific 
 vision, know nothing about what is going on 
 in the world, except through the means just 
 mentioned. But the saints, being already in 
 the enjoyment of God, know every thing that 
 takes place here below. Such is the opinion 
 of St. Gregory the Great, who asks, “ What 
 can be concealed from those who see God, 
 who Himself sees all things ?” There are 
 some persons, however, who maintain that 
 the saints know nothing more than what 
 is necessary to their happiness and ours.* 
 
 Our duty is, therefore, my dear Frederic, to 
 love and preserve these sacred relations exist¬ 
 ing between ourselves and the dead ; for we 
 may feel assured that in assisting them, we 
 help ourselves, and further the wise designs of 
 a merciful God. 
 
 * St. Thomas. 
 
TWENTIETH LETTER. 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul believed by Savage as well 
 as Civilized Nations. 
 
 Dear Friend: 
 
 The existence and immortality of the soul, 
 the communion of saints, the utility of pray¬ 
 ing for the dead, all so eloquently preached to 
 us by the cemetery, are articles, not only of 
 Christian faith, but they have always been be¬ 
 lieved among pagans. 
 
 Except a few sensual Epicureans of anti¬ 
 quity, worthy precursors of our modern “ soli- 
 daires,” all nations have believed in these fun¬ 
 damental truths. To find evidence, let us 
 take a birds-eye view of the world. We will 
 wing our flight first to Palestine, the ancient 
 home of the Jews, whom we will follow in 
 their wanderings through all parts of the 
 globe. The Old Testament teaches the im¬ 
 mortality of the soul in countless places ; tell¬ 
 ing us over and over again that the souls of 
 
The Christian Cemetery. 189 
 
 the dead were gathered to their fathers ; that 
 is, that they outlived their bodies. Lest I 
 should tire you by my tediousness, I will 
 merely mark in a note at the bottom of this 
 page the passages of Holy Scripture having 
 a bearing on this truth, and showing the be¬ 
 lief held by the Jewish people. # 
 
 The use of the term scheol is an indication 
 of their faith in the life of the soul after its 
 separation from the body; for it means the 
 place where souls met each other. You 
 know that the Pentateuch never employs this 
 word in the sense of a tomb or grave. Thus 
 in Genesis we read that, when Jacob heard of 
 Joseph’s death, he exclaimed, “ I will go down 
 to my son into hell (scheol) mourning.” (Gen. 
 37 : 35-) It evident that he did not mean 
 the grave, for he thought that his son had been 
 devoured by beasts. This doctrine, revealed 
 by God to the fathers of the human family, was 
 preserved by His providence from generation 
 to generation. Thus, in addressing Moses, 
 He calls Himself the God of Abraham, the 
 God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, long af¬ 
 ter their death. Now, God can not be God of 
 
 * Gen. 37 : 35 ; 25 : 28 ; 35 : 29; Numb. 60 : 26 ; Deut. 
 32 : 50 ; Jud. 11: 10 ; iv. Kings 22 : 20 ; II. Paralip. 34 : 28 ; Wis¬ 
 dom, 3:1; Isai. 26 : 19 ; I. Mach. 14 : 30 ; 11. Mach. 7:9; 14 : 23. 
 
190 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 what does not exist. He is God only of that 
 
 ✓ 
 
 which is, and consequently lives. Hence those 
 patriarchs, whose God He declared Himself to 
 be, were not entirely dead. Their souls were 
 living somewhere. And as He had been their 
 God during their pilgrimage on earth, so He 
 continued to be their God after they had es¬ 
 caped from exile, and entered their own true 
 country. It was in this way that the Jews of 
 Our Saviours time understood these words of 
 God. One person asks Him what to do to 
 gain eternal life. Martha professes, in the 
 hearing of Christ, that she knows her brother 
 Lazarus will rise again at the last day, thus 
 showing that she believed he was not annihi¬ 
 lated, or dead, body and soul. 
 
 However, there was among the Jews, a sect 
 called Sadducees, who having imbibed from 
 the Greeks some of the doctrines of Epicu¬ 
 rus, began to deny the immortality of the soul. 
 You know with what success and power Our 
 Lord shut their mouths and brought them to 
 shame and confusion in the presence of the 
 delighted multitude. “ And Jesus answering, 
 said to them, You err, not knowing the Scrip¬ 
 tures, nor the power of God, . . . nor 
 
 read that which was spoken by God, saying to 
 you, I am the God of Abraham, and the God 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 191 
 
 of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not 
 the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matt. 
 22 : 29-32.) This reply of the Divine Master 
 is a complete refutation, or what is called an 
 argument ad hominem , because it goes direct 
 to the point, using the adversary’s own wea¬ 
 pons. Hence the plaudits of the bystanders. 
 A word will make you understand this better. 
 To refute these Sadducees, Our Lord selected 
 a passage from the Pentateuch : “ I am the 
 God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the 
 God of Jacob.” He passed over many equally 
 conclusive arguments to be found elsewhere 
 in Scripture, because the only portion admit¬ 
 ted by the Sadducees was the Pentateuch ; 
 these books were held in high esteem among 
 the Jews, while the three patriarchs were so 
 much revered that no person would dare to 
 say that they were dead, that is, annihilated in 
 body and soul. All believed that they dwelt 
 with God and kept watch and care over their 
 posterity. # 
 
 After their dispersion, the Jews carried with 
 them, whithersoever they went, the doctrine 
 of the soul’s immortality. To-day, they call 
 their burying-places the homes of the living; 
 and as they lay the bodies of their deceased 
 
 * Corn, a Lapide 
 
192 The Christian Cc 7 netery 
 
 brethren in their graves, they thus address 
 them: “ Blessed be God who made you. He 
 knows you, one and all, and will raise you up 
 to life on the last day.” Then each one 
 throws on the coffin a handful of clay.* 
 
 We will now take a glance at heathendom. 
 dElianus relates that, “ when Cercides of Me¬ 
 galopolis was asked on his death-bed, if he 
 were willing to die, he replied, Why not? I 
 am pleased to leave this body ; for then I shall 
 ascend to that country where I shall meet 
 Pythagoras among the philosophers, Homer 
 among the poets, and Apollo among the mu¬ 
 sicians, together with others illustrious in the 
 arts and sciences.”! Xenophon gives us the 
 last advice of Cyrus to his sons: “ Do not 
 suppose, my dear children, that when 1 shall 
 have left this life, I shall be nothing or no¬ 
 where. You have never seen my soul, yet 
 you believe that my body was its dwelling- 
 place. Believe that my soul will be the same 
 to you, even after it is parted from the 
 body.”! It is said that Cato killed himself, 
 while reading Plato’s book on the immortality 
 of the soul, in order the sooner to enjoy that 
 
 * Ceremon. Funeb. Published b y J. F. Bernard, 1S1S, 
 f ^Flian. lib. xiii. 
 
 \ Xenophon. Cyrop, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 193 
 
 immortal life. Cicero puts the following- 
 words in Scipio’s mouth long after his death: 
 “ Be assured that all those who have labored 
 for the preservation, defense, and welfare of 
 their country will enjoy eternal happiness 
 in heaven. . . . Men live in reality only 
 
 when they have broken the bonds of the flesh 
 and come out of its prison. What you call 
 your life is death.”* 
 
 Leaving the Greeks and Romans, let us 
 visit the Indians, and we shall find them all 
 unchanged and unchangeable in their belief in 
 the immortality of the soul. Among the laws 
 of the Brahmins is the following: It is pro¬ 
 per for the widow to be burned with her hus¬ 
 band’s corpse; and by so doing, accompany 
 him to paradise, where they will dwell togeth¬ 
 er for all eternity. The Peguans believe in 
 transmigration of souls, which is nothing else 
 than belief in the perpetual life of the soul, 
 and a distorted view of the resurrection. In 
 the island of Ceylon, the friends of the de¬ 
 ceased call in their priests to recite prayers for 
 the repose of the departed soul. We find the 
 same manifestations of a belief in immortality 
 among the islanders of Java and Sofala. The 
 Sofalese are so firmly convinced that their de- 
 
 * De Repub. lib. vi. 
 
1 94 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 ceased friends still live, that they prepare food 
 for them. 
 
 Winging our way to the great countries of 
 the East, we find the Chinese so devoted to 
 the souls of their dead ancestors that they 
 fall into idolatry. Should a “solidaire” 
 go there to tell them that their forefathers 
 were but clods of dirt, he would be burnt 
 alive. There is a law in Persia requiring 
 children to hold a funeral festival after their 
 parents’ death, the object of which is to secure 
 rest and happiness to their relatives. 
 
 Penetrate into unhappy Africa, the most de¬ 
 graded portion of the globe, and there meet 
 the missionaries and travelers who will inter¬ 
 pret the religion of the inhabitants. Except¬ 
 ing a very few tribes, they all believe in the im¬ 
 mortality of the soul. When the king of Da¬ 
 homey dies, hundreds of human beings are 
 put to death, that they may act as his guard of 
 honor in the next world. Only last year, on 
 the death of the late king, twenty-four women 
 were slain for the purpose of ministering to 
 him in the other life. In Congo,' the rites at 
 a funeral are manifold, and most of them in¬ 
 dicative of a firm belief that' the dead man’s 
 spirit still lives somewhere. Among nearly 
 all the other tribes may be found barbarous 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 195 
 
 and cruel practices ; but yet all demonstrat¬ 
 ing the same belief. 
 
 Throughout the American continent, we 
 find that the aborigines believed in the im¬ 
 mortality of the soul, and even in some sort of 
 a resurrection. Not even the most degraded 
 tribes could be charged with treating their 
 dead as mere clods of earth. The early mis¬ 
 sionaries of Canada inform us that the tribes 
 in those parts believed in the transmigration, 
 and of course the immortality, of the soul. 
 “ They conduct their funerals,” writes a tra¬ 
 veler, “ with all the pomp they can command. 
 They paint the face of the corpse in various 
 colors, lay it in a highly polished coffin, and 
 surround it with palisades. The dead are 
 sent to the other world well provided. New 
 shoes, an axe, porcelain necklaces, a pipe, to¬ 
 bacco, cooking utensils, meat, and other 
 articles of food, are placed near them. These 
 are intended for the use of the deceased in 
 that beautiful country, the ‘ happy hunting- 
 grounds.’ Such is their notion of heaven. 
 They also have feasts in honor of the dead, 
 on which occasion they take the bones from 
 the old grave, decorate them with porcelain 
 rings, and then bury them in another place. 
 This ceremony they believe to be gratifying 
 
196 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 to the departed souls. In fact, all the Ameri¬ 
 can tribes carry out scrupulously their accus¬ 
 tomed modes of honoring the dead.”* 
 
 After their battles, the prisoners are distri¬ 
 buted among the victors, especially among the 
 women who have lost their husbands and 
 brothers. If the women wish, they may put 
 them to death, saying, “ My father, my hus¬ 
 band, or my brother,” as the case may be, 
 “ has no slaves to wait upon him in the land of 
 the dead; you must, therefore, go to him 
 without delay.” The prisoners are then 
 cruelly slain.f Believing in the immortality 
 of the soul, they locate their heaven amid the 
 stars, and their hell in the wild mountain 
 recesses. In Central and South-America, 
 similar practices were known to exist among 
 the native Indians, being undoubted expres¬ 
 sions of faith in the undying nature of the 
 soul. In his work on Peru, Lopez de Gomara 
 tells us, that when the Spaniards opened the 
 tombs of the Peruvian chiefs, the Indians be¬ 
 sought them not to disturb the bones, lest 
 they would not be all together in one place at 
 the time of the resurrection; thus showing 
 their faith in the immortality of the soul and 
 
 * C6remon. Funeb. t. i. p. 35. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 37. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 197 
 
 the resurrection of the body. It was because 
 of this belief, that the wives and servants of 
 the dead volunteered to die, that they might 
 serve them in the other world. 
 
 In the islands of Otaheite, when a native 
 approaches a burial-place, he uncovers his 
 body down to the waist, and assumes an 
 attitude of respect. Their funerals are attend¬ 
 ed with lamentation and prayer. 
 
 We might extend our travels, but I will end 
 them by relating an event, for the account of 
 which we are indebted to Captain Wilson, an 
 English navigator. His ship was lying at an¬ 
 chor in the Southern Ocean off the Pelew 
 Islands. It was Sunday, and the crew had as¬ 
 sembled on deck for divine service. The king’s 
 son was present, and after prayers the captain 
 began to explain the service, saying, “ We 
 pray that we may become better men. For 
 when we die and are buried, we will then live 
 again in heaven.” The prince replied, “ We 
 do the same thing in Pelew. Wicked men 
 remain in the earth, good men go to heaven 
 and become beautiful.” 
 
 All these savage and pagan nations are so 
 many prodigal sons, who have squandered the 
 greatest part of the inheritance of truth given 
 to them by the Great Father of the human 
 
The Christian Cemetery. 
 
 198 
 
 family. To the disgrace of the “ solidaires,' 5 
 they have preserved the knowledge of the 
 souls immortality. 
 
 
TWENTY-FIRST LETTER. 
 
 The Fourth Sermon of the Cemetery—“The Resurrec¬ 
 tion of the Body”—Meaning of the Word Ceme¬ 
 tery—Beautiful Explanation by St. Chrysostom— 
 The Victories won by Christ—Defeat of Satan— 
 Other Names for the Cemetery—The Transformation 
 of the Seed in the Soil, a Figure of the Change 
 undergone by the Human Body. 
 
 My Dear Frederic : 
 
 The sanctity of the human body, the in¬ 
 divisible brotherhood of man on both sides 
 of the grave, and the immortality of the soul, 
 have thus far been the subjects of the ser¬ 
 mons preached to us by the voice of the 
 cemetery. The whole world has been listen¬ 
 ing to its voice from time immemorial, and 
 its warnings have been widely heeded. For 
 the truths delivered have been so deeply 
 graven in the soul of man as to become a 
 part of his nature; and neither the gross vices 
 of barbarism, the refined indulgence of the 
 passions, nor the false reasoning of learned 
 impiety could tear them out. 
 
200 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Our eloquent preacher has in reserve one 
 more subject—the resurrection of the body; 
 a subject full of consolation, and forming the 
 complement of the other three. 
 
 How does the cemetery treat this new 
 subject? Let it answer for itself: “ I preach 
 the resurrection of the flesh, by my very name, 
 cemetery signifying a dormitory or place 
 for sleeping.* The dormitory supposes sleep, 
 and sleep implies an awakening. I am not 
 a land that devours its inhabitants; I am 
 a reliquary to preserve them. All who re¬ 
 pose on my bosom are not dead but sleeping. 
 Your father and mother, your lamented bro¬ 
 ther and beloved sister lie here ; but they are 
 asleep. ‘ The girl is not dead, but sleepeth.’ ” 
 
 The word cemetery is scarce born into ex¬ 
 istence when the golden-mouthed Chrysostom 
 rises to explain it: “ How beautifully and 
 
 aptly the name suits the object! How full 
 of consolation and wisdom ! It is really true, 
 then, that death is no longer death, but a 
 sleep, or a sweet slumber. We are assembled 
 here to-day, (Good-Friday,) in commemoration 
 of Our Lords descent among the dead, and 
 the place where we are assembled is termed a 
 cemetery, that you may understand they are 
 
 *The Greek word KoturjTTjprov means dormitory. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 201 
 
 not dead who lie here, but sleeping. Before 
 the coming of Christ, death was truly named 
 death. But since He came, and brought life 
 into the world by suffering death, death has 
 become a sleep, a gentle slumber. He Him¬ 
 self named it thus, and His disciples imitated 
 Him. ‘ Lazarus our friend,’ said Jesus, 
 ‘sleepeth.’ (John 11: 11.) He does not say 
 Lazarus is dead, although he really was so. 
 It is plain that this term was an unusual 
 name for death; for the Apostles were puz¬ 
 zled, nay, even took the expression in its lite¬ 
 ral sense, saying, ‘ Lord, if he sleep, he shall 
 do well.’ (John 11 : 12.)” 
 
 St. Paul, in several of his epistles, calls 
 death a sleep, and speaks of the dead as fallen 
 asleep in the Lord. Nowhere is he more ex¬ 
 plicit than in his first epistle to the Thessa- 
 lonians: “And we will not have you igno¬ 
 rant, brethren, concerning them that are 
 asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as 
 others who have no hope. For if we believe 
 that Jesus died and rose again, even so them 
 who have slept through Jesus, will God bring 
 with Him.” (1. Thess. 4 : 12,13.) 
 
 “ See,” continues St. Chrysostom, “ how 
 death is. everywhere termed sleep. For this 
 reason the place where the dead repose is 
 
202 
 
 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 called a cemetery, which word means a place 
 for sleeping, a dormitory, and is full of hope 
 and comfort. Therefore, when you bring 
 hither a dead friend, be not disconsolate; for 
 you are not consigning him to death, but to 
 sleep. Remember the name of the place to 
 which you are bringing him—dormitory; 
 death’s bonds having been burst asunder by 
 the death of Christ.” 
 
 Who burst these bonds asunder and broke 
 down the prison of death, to earn for the 
 cemetery its appropriate name ? The elo¬ 
 quent patriarch will tell us. Listen attentively, 
 my dear Frederic, to language which pagan 
 elegance could never equal. 
 
 “ ‘ To-day, Our Lord visited hell. On this 
 day He shattered its brazen gates ; on this day 
 He broke its iron bolts.’* How correct these 
 expressions are! He does not say, He opened 
 the brazen gates, but He shattered them ; thus 
 rendering the prison unavailing forever. In¬ 
 stead of drawing the bolts, He broke them, 
 rendering further imprisonment impossible. 
 When the Son of God pulls down, who will 
 dare to build up ? 
 
 Up to the time of the Messiah, no one had 
 been able to compel death to relinquish a 
 
 * Isa. 45 : 2. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 203 
 
 single captive ; but when He appeared in the 
 dark prison of the dread enemy, His omni¬ 
 potence set them all free.” 
 
 How do you designate the victory by which 
 the Divine Conqueror acquired a right to 
 claim these prisoners of death? Hear St. 
 Chrysostom once more: “ The Saviour first 
 chained the ‘ strong man armed,’ and then 
 despoiled him of those treasures, called by the 
 prophet Isaiah the dark invisible treasures. 
 And in truth they were enveloped in darkness 
 until the Sun of Justice, arising over them, 
 converted their hell into a heaven .” 
 
 The prophet Isaiah had good reason for 
 calling death a treasury of darkness, for it held 
 very many valuable treasures. “All humanity, 
 that real treasure belonging to God, but stolen 
 by the devil when Adam fell, was imprisoned 
 under the empire of death. Like to a good 
 and wise ruler, who, in his efforts to benefit his 
 subjects, captures some arch-thief, who, at the 
 head of his hordes, has been plundering the 
 country and hiding his booty in a dark cavern ; 
 whom he chains as prisoner, hands him over 
 to justice, and removes his spoils to the safe¬ 
 keeping of lawful authority. This is what 
 Christ has done. After having put death in 
 chains, He carries off His treasures, namely, 
 
204 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 the human race. St. Paul teaches this truth 
 in the following words: £ He hath delivered 
 us from the power of darkness, and hath 
 transported us into the kingdom of the Son 
 of His love.”’ # 
 
 How much, then, my dear Frederic, is 
 expressed by the word cemetery! The u soli- 
 daires” themselves can not pronounce the 
 word without condemning themselves and 
 their theories in the very act, and professing 
 unconsciously the most consoling article in 
 the creed of civilized nations. 
 
 The cemetery has two other names in 
 Catholic language, both indicative of resur¬ 
 rection ; namely, Holy Field, and Field of 
 God. In Italy, it is usually called Campo 
 Santo, holy field, and properly so. You know 
 that the Republic of Pisa, one of the greatest 
 maritime powers of the middle ages, sent out 
 a fleet to the Holy Land for the purpose of 
 bringing home cargoes of the soil of Judea, 
 which had been consecrated by the footprints 
 of Jesus. With this soil, they made their 
 cemetery of Campo Santo . 
 
 Why this vast expense ? Ask the faithful 
 of these heroic ages, and they will reply, 
 “ There is nothing more noble or more sacred 
 
 * Coloss, i : 13, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 205 
 
 in our estimation than a human body destined 
 to a glorious immortality; and no earth is 
 more worthy of forming its resting-place 
 'while awaiting judgment than the earth 
 moistened by the tears and consecrated by 
 the footprints of our Saviour. These are 
 the reasons why we have spared no expense 
 or trouble in preparing our bed, which is also 
 to be the bed of our children and fellow-citi¬ 
 zens.” The Pisans, however, had been antici¬ 
 pated in a similar profession of faith. You 
 remember how the Empress Helena, during 
 her pious pilgrimage to Palestine, had the 
 field of blood, Haceldama, dug up, and the 
 soil brought in royal galleys even to Rome. 
 This field had been bought by the Jews, and 
 paid for with the treason-money of Judas, in 
 order to furnish free burial to strangers. To 
 carry out this design to the letter, none but 
 pilgrims and strangers are allowed to be 
 buried in this soil. You remember this ven¬ 
 erable burying-place near the Vatican. 
 
 The other appellation, Field of God, is a 
 very expressive one. God, the Creator, re¬ 
 storer, and preserver of all things, is like the 
 husbandman sowing his seed. Every hus¬ 
 bandman has his field. God has His in the 
 cemetery and near His house, the church. 
 
206 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Whilst the farmer sows various kinds of seed, 
 God sows but one kind in His field. The 
 farmer plants his with full confidence of soon 
 seeing it rise above the surface, to reward his 
 pains in due time, by ample returns. He is 
 not disappointed. 
 
 The seed sown by God in His field is the 
 most choice, the most precious, the most high¬ 
 ly prized of all seeds ; for it is a human body 
 formed to its Maker’s likeness, redeemed by a 
 Saviour’s blood, the heir to eternal happiness 
 and joy. We have seen with what jealous 
 care, God watches over this seed and'the field 
 where it is sown. Time is the season of sow¬ 
 ing ; eternity will be the harvest-season when 
 the whole human race will be ripe for its 
 future rewards or punishments. 
 
 It is then, that man’s body, after having 
 undergone in the earth a process similar to 
 that gone through by the grain of wheat, will 
 appear to our eyes glorious, luminous, agile, 
 subtile, and impassible. As the grain of 
 wheat owes its new modification to the 
 undying principle of life implanted in it, 
 namely, the creative word of God, so will 
 our body owe its glorious resurrection and 
 its eternal happiness to the divine germ 
 planted within us by the Redeemer, at our 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 207 
 
 union with Him in Holy Communion in re 
 or in voto. 
 
 But let us remember, my dear friend, that 
 we must first die, before we can have a resur¬ 
 rection. Let us die then to the old man of 
 sin, that we may rise new men. As the seed 
 in the ground throws off all that has not the 
 principle of life, let us cast off all that is not 
 of God, and for God. This is an indispen¬ 
 sable condition of a glorious immortality; it 
 is the law of our union with the new Adam. 
 “ For if we have been planted together in the 
 likeness of His death, we shall be also in the 
 likeness of His resurrection 
 
 While we are awaiting this much-desired 
 day, let us throw off sin, die to ourselves, pass 
 through the world as the bird does through 
 the air, without stopping for wind or rain. 
 Sic transeamus per bona temporalia, ut non 
 amittamus ceterna. Let us so pass through 
 temporal things that we may not lose the 
 eternal. 
 
 * Rom. 6 : 5. 
 
TWENTY-SECOND LETTER. 
 
 The Cemetery a Place of temporary Rest—Our Lord’s 
 Teachings — He foretells His own Resurrection — 
 Death is but Sleep—Citation from St. Paul—From 
 St.John — Pagan Opposition — The Fathers of the 
 Church. 
 
 My Dear Frederic : 
 
 When we say that the cemetery is a place 
 of rest for those who fall asleep in the Lord, 
 we but state the common belief of all men in 
 the resurrection ; that is, in the future restora¬ 
 tion to life of all generations of every age, 
 clime, and religion. We have heard and seen 
 this truth proved. Although the belief in a 
 future resurrection was very much obscured 
 by passion and ignorance, yet it was restored 
 to its primitive purity by the Divine Precep¬ 
 tor of men. Listen to His teachings, and 
 those of His apostles, on this point, and you 
 will easily recognize the echo of their doc¬ 
 trines, in the very word dormitory , as applied 
 to the cemetery. 
 
 Our Saviour was in Jerusalem. It was just 
 
The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 209 
 
 the hour for a repetition of the well-known 
 miracle at the pond called Probatica. Great 
 throngs of people were in attendance ; some 
 for the purpose of aiding their sick friends, 
 but the majority had been brought by a desire 
 to witness the performance of the miracle. 
 And there was a certain paralytic there, unable 
 to move from his bed, but patiently hoping that 
 some kind hand would assist him into the wa¬ 
 ter, when agitated by the angel. Our blessed 
 Lord seeing him, advances to his bedside, and 
 asks, “ How long have you been paralyzed ?” 
 “ For eight and thirty years,” is the sad re¬ 
 sponse of the helpless invalid. Jesus said, 
 “Wilt thou be made whole?” “Alas! Sir, 
 there is no one to carry me into the pond at 
 the favorable moment.” Moved to compas¬ 
 sion, Our Saviour says to him, “Arise, take up 
 thy bed, and walk.” Imagine, if you can, jthe 
 excitement that this miracle must have made 
 among the thousands of spectators of every 
 age, rank, and religion, there present. 
 
 Observe the admirable wisdom of the Divine 
 Master. Why did He effect this instantaneous 
 cure in Jerusalem, and in presence of so many 
 eye-witnesses? To prepare their minds to 
 receive the doctrine He was about to preach, 
 and to confirm their belief in a far greater 
 
2 io * The Christian Cemetery 
 
 miracle than the healing of a poor paralytic; 
 namely, the resurrection of all men on the 
 last day. 
 
 Taking advantage of the astonishment of 
 the Jews, Our Lord hastens to say, “ For as 
 the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth 
 life, so the Son also giveth life to whom He 
 will. . . . Amen, amen, I say unto you, that 
 the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead 
 shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and 
 they that hear shall live. For as the Father 
 hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the 
 Son also to have life in Himself. . . . Wonder 
 not at this; for the hour cometh wherein all 
 that are in their graves shall hear the voice of 
 the Son of God. And they that have done 
 good things, shall come forth unto the resur¬ 
 rection of life; but they that have done evil, 
 unto the resurrection of judgment.”* 
 
 It would be easy to multiply passages in 
 which Our Lord asserts the doctrine of the re¬ 
 surrection. Sometimes He foretells His own 
 resurrection in proof of His Divinity. Again, 
 He terms death a sleep; as in the case of 
 Lazarus, and that of the daughter of Jairus. 
 On another occasion He speaks of the general 
 
 *John 5 : 21-29, passim. 
 
2 ] I 
 
 In the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 judgment, when all men will appear before 
 Him to be dealt with according to their works. 
 
 As I am writing a letter and not a treatise, 
 I pass quickly from the Master to the disciples. 
 
 Hear St. Paul. After having shown that 
 the belief in a resurrection of the body is the 
 foundation of Christianity, and the keystone 
 of human society, the great apostle continues, 
 “ But now Christ is risen from the dead, the 
 first fruit of them that sleep. For by a man 
 came death, and by a man the resurrection 
 of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so 
 also in Christ all shall be made alivc. ,,# 
 St. Paul here alludes to a very profound but 
 very evident truth, namely, that there are really 
 but two men in history, the first Adam and 
 the Second Adam. The first Adam is the 
 origin of death ; the Second Adam is the prin¬ 
 ciple of life. It is our union, or rather our 
 identity, with the first Adam which has in¬ 
 flicted death upon us; while union and iden¬ 
 tity with the Second Adam will restore us to 
 life—the true life of which He is the principle. 
 We may see, therefore, how indispensable is 
 our union with Christ. 
 
 Dwelling upon this fundamental truth, St. 
 Paul shows the stern necessity of the union 
 
 * I. Cor. 15 : 20-22. 
 
2 I 2 
 
 7 he Christian Cemetery 
 
 [hat he has been speaking of. Then making 
 use of the parable of the seed sown in the 
 soil, he describes the glorious transformation 
 operated in us by the resurrection. “ But 
 some man will say, How do the dead rise 
 again, or with what manner of body shall they 
 come? Senseless man, that which thou sow- 
 est is not quickened, except it die first. And 
 that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the 
 body that shall be, but bare grain, as of wheat, 
 or of some of the rest. But God giveth it a 
 body as He will, and to every seed its pro¬ 
 per body. All flesh is not the same flesh; 
 but one is the flesh of men, another of beasts, 
 another of birds, another of fishes. And 
 there are bodies celestial, and bodies terres¬ 
 trial : but one is the glory of the celestial, and 
 another of the terrestrial. One is the glory 
 of the sun, another the glory of the moon, 
 and another the glory of the stars. For star 
 differeth from star in glory. 
 
 “ So also is the resurrection of the dead. 
 It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incor¬ 
 ruption. It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise 
 in glory; it is sown in weakness, it shall rise 
 in power. It is sown a natural body, it shall 
 rise a spiritual body. If there be a natural 
 body, there is also a spiritual body; as it is 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 2 13 
 
 written, The first man Adam was made into 
 a living soul; the last Adam into a quicken¬ 
 ing spirit. Yet that was not first which was 
 spiritual, but that which is natural; afterward 
 that which is spiritual. The first man was 
 of the earth, earthly; the Second Man from 
 heaven, heavenly. Therefore, as we have 
 borne the image of the earthly, let us bear 
 also the image of the heavenly. 
 
 “ Behold, I tell you a great mystery; we 
 shall all indeed rise again ; but we shall not all 
 be changed.”* 
 
 It is a necessary condition of our glorious 
 resurrection, that we so unite with the Second 
 Adam as to become His image, His disciples, 
 His children. 
 
 These words of St. Paul are so plain and 
 explicit that they render it unnecessary to 
 cite his other passages inculcating the same 
 doctrine. The mode of our resurrection we 
 shall see later. 
 
 The Apostle St. John is another preacher 
 of the resurrection. In his prophecies con¬ 
 cerning the future condition of the Church, 
 both in time and eternity, he explains all her 
 mysteries most luminously—thanks to his 
 honored privilege of drawing his inspirations 
 
 * i. Cor. 15, passim. 
 
214 7i&? Christian Cemetery 
 
 from the very heart of his well-beloved Master, 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ. “And I saw,” he 
 says, “ a great white throne, and one sitting 
 upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven 
 fled away, and there was no place found for 
 them. And I saw the dead, great and small, 
 standing in the presence of the throne: and 
 the books were opened ; and another Book 
 was opened, which is the book of life ; and the 
 dead were judged by those things which were 
 written in the books according to their works : 
 and the sea gave up the dead that were in it, 
 and death and hell gave up their dead that 
 were in them, and they were judged every 
 one according to their works.”* 
 
 This gathering of the dead, great and small, 
 before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge, 
 proves not merely the immortality of the soul, 
 but also the resurrection of the flesh ; and 
 consequently the correctness of the term 
 dormitory as applied to the cemetery. You 
 will have an elucidation of this incontestable 
 truth in my next letters. 
 
 We may thank the Gospel, that good mes¬ 
 senger of truth and peace, for rescuing the 
 comforting doctrine of the resurrection from 
 the oblivion to which the Epicureans of anti- 
 
 " Apoc. 20 : 11-13. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 2 15 
 
 quity would fain consign it. Peter preached 
 it in Jerusalem; Paul before the philosophers 
 of the Areopagus at Athens; Matthew to 
 the Indians; Luke to the Gauls; and the 
 other apostles to all nations. So the sun rose 
 and shed its rays throughout the earth. 
 
 Paganism, however, did not yield without a 
 struggle. When men with sinful and per¬ 
 verse hearts were told that they would have 
 to answer for their evil doings, before an in¬ 
 corruptible judge, they took the alarm, and, 
 with the fury of the tiger, rushed upon the 
 apostles, who thus sealed with their blood the 
 ancient faith of the human race. 
 
 Persecution by the tongue succeeded per¬ 
 secution by the sword. The devil, who knows 
 so well how to raise fogs and gather clouds, 
 aroused his agents and armed them against 
 the truth of the resurrection with his own 
 malice and hypocrisy. But Providence never 
 fails. From the treasury of His infinite wis¬ 
 dom He brought forth lights—the brightest 
 that ever shone among men, both in eloquence, 
 depth of knowledge, and power of reasoning. 
 Faithful to their inheritance, the religion of 
 the Son of God and His apostles, they defend¬ 
 ed the mystery of the resurrection so success¬ 
 fully that they closed forever the mouths of 
 
216 The Christian Cemetery. 
 
 their adversaries; and the cemetery was again 
 proved to be the place of rest for those who 
 have fallen asleep in the Lord. 
 
 In the estimation of the sophists of old, 
 the lessons of the Gospel were, as they are to¬ 
 day to the “solidaires,” nothing but assertions 
 without proof. In their willful blindness, they 
 would not see the miracles. The fathers of 
 the Church, setting up their defense where the 
 attack was most violent, proved by sensible 
 evidences, by unanswerable arguments, the 
 truth of divine teaching on a dogma at once 
 comforting and frightful, namely, a future 
 resurrection. 
 
 I will reserve their sayings for another 
 letter. 
 
TWENTY-THIRD LETTER. 
 
 Beautiful and solid Philosophy of the Fathers—Their 
 Arguments on the Resurrection—Beautiful Passage 
 FROM TeRTULLIAN—ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS—NOTHING 
 PERISHABLE IN NATURE—THE “ SOLIDAIRES.” 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 Let us read together, as an introduction to 
 the remaining letters, these luminous verses of 
 the Gospel: “ Every one, therefore, that hear 
 eth these my words, and doth them, shall be 
 likened to a wise man, that built his house 
 upon a rock. And the rain fell, and the floods 
 came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon 
 that house: and it fell not, for it was founded 
 on a rock. And every one that heareth these 
 my words, and doth them not, shall be like 
 a foolish man that built his house upon the 
 sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, 
 and the winds blew, and they beat upon that 
 house : and it fell, and great was the fall 
 thereof. 
 
 * Matt. 7 : 24-27. 
 
218 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 If any man builds upon the sand, it is most 
 certainly the victim of rationalism. The 
 rationalistic philosopher is the man who, 
 tearing himself from the saving guardian¬ 
 ship of faith, pretends to discover the truth in 
 his own small brain. As was the case in all 
 ages, and is the case to-day, the edifice that 
 he would build must rest on the shifting sands 
 of human opinion. Time, experience, their 
 own inherent contradictions, soon destroy 
 these systems, leaving society strewn with the - 
 wrecks. 
 
 True philosophy is a very different thing. 
 The genuine philosopher is that one who, 
 standing upon the solid rock of faith, and tak¬ 
 ing Christian principles as his point of depar¬ 
 ture, explains to himself revealed dogmas, 
 shows their dependence, their harmonies, and 
 their conformity with reason; draws his con¬ 
 sequences, and finally establishes those mighty 
 propositions which subdue mind and heart 
 by their truth and beauty. False philosophy 
 and human passions combined will be power¬ 
 less to undermine his edifice of truth ; for 
 beim' founded on a rock, it will last forever. 
 
 Such, my dear friend, is the grand and im¬ 
 mortal philosophy of the fathers of the Church. 
 You know that when our ancestors were 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 2 19 
 
 marching on their expedition to the Holy 
 Land, in order to effect the deliverance of the 
 Saviours sepulchre from the hands of the 
 infidels, their oft-repeated war-cry was, God 
 wills it. Thus, too, did the learned men of 
 primitive Christianity come forward to deliver 
 the doctrine of the resurrection from the 
 hands of the false teachers, with the cry, 
 “ God wills it. ” He who once created 
 man can again raise him from death to life. 
 He can , and He will. This is our proposi¬ 
 tion. 
 
 He can. “ And why,” asks Tertullian, 
 “ cou^d he not ? Go back in thought to the 
 moment of creation, and your incredulity will 
 vanish. How was this world produced ? 
 Whence came the countless animals that were 
 to inhabit the earth ? Whence did the plants 
 and trees, that at once covered the earth 
 with beauty, derive the sap that circulated 
 through all their parts ? And yourself, O 
 man! what were you before you were man ? 
 Nothing. 
 
 “ If God, then, has brought you into exist¬ 
 ence out of nothing, why can He not raise you 
 from death? You were not, and now you are. 
 You will cease to live, and you will live again. 
 Explain to me the mystery of your creation, 
 
220 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 and I will explain to you the mystery of your 
 resurrection. Is it more difficult to be restor¬ 
 ed to what you once were, than to become 
 what you once were not? It is certainly a 
 greater work to produce than to repair, to 
 create being than to merely modify it, to make 
 a source of light than to kindle an extinguish¬ 
 ed torch. You have some materials to rebuild 
 a fallen castle. God was pleased to precede 
 the work of resurrection by the more wonder¬ 
 ful and difficult one of creation.”* 
 
 But you object, that this flesh of ours may 
 be wasted in the waves, scattered by the winds, 
 devoured by beasts, or even by men. 
 
 The potter who has made the vessel can 
 mend it if it get broken; and you will not 
 allow the Omnipotent to repair the work of 
 His hands! Thanks to the very advanced 
 state of science, the chemist can now dissolve 
 the invisible ties uniting the elements of 
 bodies, carry the analysis and decomposition 
 of their parts to the infinite, so to speak; and 
 then by a new process find these scattered 
 atoms, separate them from thousands of others, 
 bring them back, reunite them, and form new 
 substances. Is it, then, impossible for God, 
 who holds the universe in the hollow of His 
 
 * Tertullian, De Rcsurrectione Carnis, c. iii. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 221 
 
 hand, to recover the scattered atoms of our 
 bodies, reunite them, and restore them to 
 their original condition ? 
 
 Tertullian continues, “Whether our flesh 
 shall have lain at the bottom of the sea, been 
 consumed by fire, devoured by wild beasts, or 
 inclosed in the bosom of the earth whence 
 it came, it is still within reach of God’s 
 mighty arm. He keeps it safely deposited 
 against the day of a general resurrection, when 
 He will unite it to the soul which formerly 
 dwelt within it.”* The words of the Apostle 
 Paul, my dear friend, are very true, “ Whether 
 we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” 
 He watches over us, preserving in our flesh 
 the vital principle planted there by Himself 
 just as He keeps it alive in the apparently 
 dead grain of wheat buried in the field. 
 
 But, you add, our body is constantly chang¬ 
 ing, constantly throwing off and renewing its 
 tissues. How can it ever be exactly as it was 
 when inhabited by the soul? It matters but 
 little that the body loses successively a certain 
 number of its parts. For a body to be re¬ 
 stored to life, it is not at all requisite that it 
 recover all the particles of matter belonging 
 
 * Tertullian, ibid. 
 
 f Rom. 14 : 8. 
 
222 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 to it at different periods of its existence. It 
 is sufficient if the first elements, which form 
 the groundwork or necessary essence of the 
 human body, do not change while acquiring 
 or losing these particles of accessory matter. 
 And such is the case. You know this to be an 
 indisputable fact, admitted by the most skill¬ 
 ful observers, and plain even to the vulgar 
 eye. The human countenance does not alter 
 essentially, nor indeed any part of the body. 
 Society treats the man at every stage of his 
 living existence as the same person, and calls 
 him always by the same name. Even the 
 cannibal, at his dreadful banquets, does not 
 acquire any thing essential and which he can 
 not part with without continuing to be the 
 same individual. Intelligent minds find no 
 more difficulty in the question of the resur¬ 
 rection of his victims, than in that of men 
 whose remains have been carefully deposited 
 beneath the protecting marble. 
 
 Moreover, even the accidental particles of 
 the human body do not go out of existence. 
 Since the sixth day of creation, not an atom 
 more or less of matter has existed in the uni¬ 
 verse. There* has been modification, but no 
 destruction. “ The works which God hath 
 made continue forever,” saith the prophet. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 223 
 
 Omnia opera qnce fecit Deus , perseverant in 
 perpetuumP We defy the most skillful and 
 persistent chemist, even with the most perfect 
 instrument to annihilate a grain of sand or a 
 drop of water. To reduce being to nothing, 
 is no less difficult than to produce being from 
 nothing. 
 
 You see, my dear friend, that no reason 
 can be given to show that our future resurrec¬ 
 tion exceeds the power of God, while the 
 reason of all men affirms the possibility and 
 even the certainty of this happy event. 
 
 Every body would laugh at the folly of a 
 man who, imagining himself greater than any 
 one else, would go out alone to challenge an 
 immense army, and foolishly hope to win the 
 victory. And yet the unbeliever, in the pride 
 of his small and fallible intellect, makes him¬ 
 self equally ridiculous by setting up his individ¬ 
 ual judgment against the reasoning of all 
 men, and his thoughts of an hour against the 
 teachings of centuries. 
 
 But we shall rise again, for God is omni¬ 
 potent. In our next we shall see that God 
 wills it. 
 
 * Eccles. 3 : 14. 
 
TWENTY-FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 We shall rise from the Dead—God’s Attributes require 
 it—God’s two great Books—Both teach the Resur¬ 
 rection—The Universe preaches the Resurrection— 
 St. Chrysostom—Tertullian — St. Augustine—Testi¬ 
 mony of Job and St. Paul. 
 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 We have seen that God can raise us from 
 the dead ; we shall now see that He will raise 
 us from the dead. His divine truth wills it, 
 His wisdom wills it, His justice wills it, His 
 goodness wills it. 
 
 FI is truth wills it. God has written two 
 great books, Nature, and the Bible. Both 
 proclaim the absolute and unchangeable will 
 of God to raise the human race from death to 
 life; that is, to awaken from their sleep in the 
 vast dormitories, called cemeteries, all genera¬ 
 tions of men and women who have fallen 
 asleep in the Lord, since the beginning of 
 time. 
 
 Nature, as it preceded the Bible, is our 
 first book. “ You ask me,” says St. Chrysos- 
 
The Christian Cemetery . 225 
 
 tom, “ how did God, before the invention of 
 books, teach man to know him? By the 
 same means that I have adopted to lead 
 you to a knowledge of this Supreme Being. 
 I have conducted you in spirit over all the uni¬ 
 verse, showing you the heavens, the earth, the 
 ocean, the fields, and all the grand and varied 
 riches of nature. We have descended to the 
 very elementary origin of pioduced effects, 
 and as we contemplated the magnificent pros¬ 
 pect spread out before our minds, with united 
 voices we cried out in transports of admira¬ 
 tion, ‘ How great are Thy works, O Lord, how 
 unfathomable thy ways !’ 
 
 We shall presently discover in this grand 
 volume of nature, not only the power, wisdom, 
 and goodness of God, but also the effect of 
 these divine attributes, namely, the mystery of 
 the future resurrection. 
 
 “You inquire further,” continues the illus¬ 
 trious patriarch, “ why a book so useful as the 
 Bible was not given by God to man from the 
 beQunninof? Because God chose to teach man 
 by objects or created beings, and not by books. 
 Had he begun to teach us by certain charac¬ 
 ters, the learned only could take advantage of 
 such means, which would be unavailing to the 
 
 * St. Chrys. Homil. i. in Genes. 
 
226 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 unlettered. The rich might procure this 
 method of instruction, while the poor could 
 not. To properly understand books, one 
 should know the language in which they were 
 first written. And so, the Bible, if it had been 
 published in Greek or Latin, would have been 
 useless to the Scythian, the Indian, the Egyp¬ 
 tian, and to all strangers to those languages. 
 
 “ This is not the case with the book of na¬ 
 ture. Its language is intelligible to all men. 
 It is accessible to the learned and the simple, to 
 rich and poor. The psalmist does not say, 
 The heavens witness the glory of God, but 
 they declare it. The whole human race has 
 heard this declaration, and seen its proof on 
 the pages of the glorious spectacle around 
 about them.” 
 
 But how does the book of nature teach 
 a coming resurrection ? I see the question 
 upon your lips, my dear Frederic, and I has¬ 
 ten to answer it. From what we have just 
 heard, and from the still more explicit testi¬ 
 mony of St. Paul, we learn that God created 
 the world to manifest His glory, by setting it 
 before our eyes as a mirror in which we may 
 easily and plainly see the reflection of those 
 spiritual realities that are invisible to our 
 eyes. “ For the invisible things of Him. . . 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 227 
 
 are clearly seen, being understood by the 
 things that are made.”* If you keep this 
 principle in mind, you will easily understand 
 how the fathers of the Church looked upon 
 the book of nature as an untiring preacher of 
 the resurrection. 
 
 First hear Tertullian: “ The world pre¬ 
 sents to our view glorious evidence of God’s 
 power, and striking pictures of the resurrec¬ 
 tion. The expiring day sinks into the tomb 
 of night. Darkness like a heavy pall hides 
 from our sight the life and beauty of the earth. 
 All nature is in silent mourning for its depart¬ 
 ed light. But soon the light breaks forth from 
 its brief entombment, with all its former life 
 and strength, the same as before. The sun 
 has conquered its death of darkness, and torn 
 away its winding-sheet of gloomy stillness. It 
 is risen. 
 
 “The seasons are very suggestive of man’s 
 resurrection. At the approach of winter 
 trees, plants—all nature seems to die, but only 
 to rise again to life and beauty in the spring. 
 The grain is buried in the soil, there to be 
 transformed and prepared for future utility 
 and beauty. 
 
 “ Our own existence is an unbroken succes- 
 
 * Rom. 1 : 20. 
 
228 
 
 The Christian Cenietery 
 
 sion of deaths and resurrections. Is not a 
 sleeping man a picture of death ? And when 
 he awakes from sleep, does he not prefigure 
 his own awakening from the sleep of death, 
 on the morning of the great day ? In a word, 
 every thing in nature dies, and rises again to 
 life. This unceasing change in created things, 
 passing from life to death, and from death to 
 life, is palpable evidence of the future restora¬ 
 tion of the human family. God stamped a 
 proof of this doctrine on every created thing, 
 long before it appeared in books. He taught 
 it by the effects of His power, before He 
 proclaimed it in Holy Scripture. He or¬ 
 dained Nature to be our first book, in order 
 to prepare our minds for the written word of 
 revelation. If we learn the first lesson, the 
 second will be easily mastered. We shall rea¬ 
 son from what we see in nature, to that which 
 we are not permitted to see in revelation, save 
 by the eye of faith. When we behold our¬ 
 selves constantly renewed, we shall easily be¬ 
 lieve that God will renew us after death for a 
 better life. If all creatures are again and 
 a^ain renewed, for the sake and benefit of 
 man, how could it be that man himself would 
 not be restored for God, for whom he was 
 created ?” 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 229 
 
 Such are the lessons which these great men, 
 with open eyes, clear minds, and pure souls, 
 have learned from this great book of nature. 
 Only the “ solidaires,” both ancient and mo¬ 
 dern, have failed to spell the first syllable in 
 this plain and easy book of study. As St. 
 Paul says, like the ass, the ox, and the mule, 
 they can not see below the surface. “ What 
 things soever they naturally know, like dumb 
 beasts, in these they are corrupted.”*' 
 
 As if to confirm the sayings of Tertullian, 
 and to further prove that the greatest intel¬ 
 lects have seen the mystery of the resurrection 
 reflected in the mirror of nature, St. Augus¬ 
 tin declares, “ The whole economy of this world 
 is a picture of the resurrection of the flesh. 
 We see the trees drop their fruit, and lose their 
 leaves and flowers at the approach of winter, 
 only to regain them all in greater beauty and 
 perfection when spring returns. I would ask 
 the incredulous man, who doubts his future 
 resurrection, where are now all these things 
 that will greet your eyes at the proper sea- 
 - son ? Tell me where they are hidden. You 
 can not find them ; but God, who in His 
 might brought them out of nothing, will, by 
 H is mysterious power, renew them again. 
 
 * Jude 10. 
 
230 1 he Christian Cemetery 
 
 So will He renew our bodies on the last 
 day. 
 
 “ Observe the fields and meadows. When 
 summer is over, they lose their flowers and 
 grass. But in spring-time, the farmer’s heart 
 is gladdened at the sight of returning life and 
 beauty. As the grass which died comes forth 
 once more to life, so will our bodies come 
 forth from the dust.” * 
 
 You perceive, that in St. Augustine’s 
 opinion, the mystery of the resurrection 
 is more frequently and more plainly written 
 in the book of nature than any other dogma 
 of our faith. Tota hujus mundi administrate 
 testimonium est resurrectionis futurce. All the 
 fathers and doctors of the Church hold the 
 same opinion. 
 
 It would be an unnecessary labor to cite 
 any more of them ; so I will pass to the 
 second book, in which God has foretold the 
 mystery of the resurrection. Here, too, in 
 order not to be tedious, I will confine myself 
 to two pages of holy Scriptures—one from 
 the Old Testament, another from the New. 
 
 It is now more than three thousand years 
 since the world, and the pagan world, listened 
 to Job’s sublime profession of his faith in this 
 
 * St. Augustin. De Verbis Apostoli. Ser. 34. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 231 
 
 mystery. He was the friend of God, and in¬ 
 herited and faithfully preserved the primitive 
 traditions. A great king among the princes 
 of the east, he fell, through the machinations 
 of the devil, from the summit of prosperity to 
 the lowest depths of wretchedness. Although 
 cast upon a dunghill, with his flesh rotting 
 from his bones, with every limb deformed, 
 and dying a living death, he never lost his 
 faith. Although, he exclaims, my spirit 
 shall be wasted, my days shall be shortened, 
 and the grave remaineth for me, my con¬ 
 fidence is not shaken. “ For I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth, and in the last day, I shall 
 rise out of the earth; and I shall be clothed 
 again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall 
 see my God. Whom I myself shall see, and 
 my eyes shall behold, and not another; this 
 my hope is laid up in my bosom.We 
 thank Thee, O God ! for having inspired this 
 profession of faith so many centuries ago. 
 
 Equally plain and explicit is the testimony 
 of St. Paul. “ We shall all indeed rise again, 
 but we shall not all be changed. In a 
 moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”t These 
 words need no comment, so I pass on. 
 
 You see, my dear friend, that the two great 
 
 * Job 19 : 25-27. 
 
 f 1. Cor. 15 : 51 52. 
 
232 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 books written by the hand of God for our in¬ 
 struction, the book of nature and the book of 
 revelation, declare in the clearest language 
 God's will to raise us from the dead. God 
 must accomplish this mystery, or contradict 
 Himself. He can do it; He will do it. And 
 this is our hope laid up in our bosom. “ Re - 
 posita est hose spes mea in sinu meoC- 
 
TWENTY-FIFTH FETTER. 
 
 We shall rise again—God’s Wisdom demands it—Evidence 
 —All Nations have held this Belief—Practice among 
 the Romans—Argument of Tertullian—Divine Justice 
 
 REQUIRES OUR RESURRECTION TO LlFE. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 Divine wisdom requires that we should rise 
 again after death. The wisdom of God is in¬ 
 fallible in its reckonings, mild but firm in the 
 means it uses to attain its end. What is the 
 aim of divine wisdom in its relation to man ? 
 To make him happy, giving him life by the 
 creative act, and restoring it to him again by 
 redemption after he had lost it by disobedi¬ 
 ence. In this twofold favor which embraces 
 within itself all other benefits, we must admire 
 the master-stroke of Eternal Wisdom. On this 
 two-fold act of goodness is based the whole 
 history of the human race. 
 
 A man brought death into the world, and a 
 man restored us again to life. Adam was a 
 source of death, but Jesus Christ is the source 
 
234 77 ^ Christian Cemetery 
 
 of life. Our Saviour annihilated the principle 
 of death in Adam, and having become the 
 victor, burst forth from the sepulchre and 
 took His rightful place in heaven. In the in¬ 
 carnation, our nature was united to His nature; 
 He became our head, and we became His 
 members, flesh of His flesh, and bone of His 
 bone. His object was, to give us a share in 
 Himself, in His life, in His glory, in His 
 everlasting happiness. This object can be 
 reached only through the resurrection. 
 
 Without this resurrection, God’s wisdom 
 would be defective, the world would be a 
 monstrosity, and Christ would have died in 
 vain. His death would have failed to re¬ 
 store us to our primitive rights. Christ, the 
 Head, would be full of immortal life and 
 resplendent in glory, while the other portions 
 of His mystic body would rot in the dark¬ 
 ness of eternal death. All humanity shrinks 
 from such doctrine, and protests against a 
 materialism that would degrade it to the level 
 of the brute. 
 
 There is incontestable proof, that all na¬ 
 tions held some sort of a belief in the resur¬ 
 rection. “ The transmigration of souls, a doc¬ 
 trine taught by the most celebrated schools 
 of philosophy, was nothing else,” says Tertul- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 255 
 
 lian, “ but a distorted view of the mystery of 
 the resurrection.”'* What other explanation 
 can you give to the prayers, funeral-rites, and 
 offerings in favor of the dead, that we have 
 seen practiced by all peoples, if they had no 
 hope of a resurrection ? 
 
 To mention one example. The Romans 
 held two annual festivals in honor of the 
 dead, called the Feralia and the Lemuria. 
 At the former, which were held toward the 
 end of February, offerings of fruits, flowers, 
 bread, and wine were placed on the tomb¬ 
 stones to appease the manes of the dead, while 
 food was also prepared for them to partake of. 
 The Lemuria were held in May. The faithful 
 observer of ancient rites arose at midnight, 
 washed his hands three times, put nine black 
 beans into his mouth, and afterward threw 
 them behind his back, saying, “ With these 
 beans I ransom myself and my dead.” Could 
 there be any more striking proof of a pagan’s 
 belief in the immortality of the soul, and of 
 course in the resurrection, for one is the con¬ 
 sequence of the other ? Both of these myste¬ 
 ries are based upon the intimate union between 
 Christ and man. “Jesus,” says Tertullian, 
 “ has raised our humanity to the highest 
 
 * De Resurrect. Carnis, c. x. 
 
236 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 heavens. In the person of Jesus Christ our 
 flesh and blood are enthroned at the right 
 hand of the Eternal Father. We can not 
 deny this truth, without denying Christ’s pre¬ 
 sence in heaven.” The great philosopher 
 concludes by saying, “ The Mediator who re¬ 
 stored man to God, and brought God to man, 
 will bring the body to the soul and the soul to 
 the body. Even in His own person he has 
 joined them inseparably together for all 
 eternity. The body belongs to the soul, and 
 the soul will not be deprived of its compan¬ 
 ion, its friend and brother—the body. 
 
 And thus, my dear friend, divine wisdom 
 attains its object. In the mystery of the re¬ 
 surrection, it destroys that pernicious dualism 
 of body and soul which, by separating one from 
 the other, deprives man of his immortality, 
 God of His Glory, and the Incarnate Word 
 of the fruits of redemption. 
 
 God’s justice demands that we should rise 
 from the dead. Cemeteries are consecrated 
 on account of the body, the body is created 
 for the soul, the soul is created for God. 
 Hence our reverence for the cemetery. /V 
 body which has been closely united to a soul, 
 the breath of God, is too sacred, in our esti¬ 
 mation, not to be provided with a becoming 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 2 37 
 
 resting-place after death. In fact, the doc¬ 
 trine of the immortality of the soul, professed 
 as it is and believed by all nations, supposes 
 the resurrection of the flesh. 
 
 The doctrine of future rewards and punish¬ 
 ments necessarily depends upon the doctrine 
 of immortality. The soul is not the whole of 
 man. For man is a soul and body united in 
 one person, who has done right or wrong as 
 one person. This person, then, must be re¬ 
 warded or punished ; and it is only in the re¬ 
 union of soul and body by virtue of the resur¬ 
 rection, that man can be complete, and receive 
 his rewards and punishments as man. This 
 is the doctrine held by the fathers. Hear 
 Tertullian : “ Man being a free being, is re¬ 
 sponsible for his acts to the God who has 
 given him life, and endowed him with free¬ 
 will. He is bound, therefore, to render an 
 account of the use made of these blessings; 
 that is, he must be judged, rewarded, or pun¬ 
 ished by God Himself. This is simple jus¬ 
 tice. 
 
 “God is Judge because He is Master; He 
 is Master because He is Creator; and He is 
 Creator because He is God. Man, to be just¬ 
 ly judged, must rise again and appear before 
 God’s tribunal in his twofold capacity of soul 
 
238 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 and body ; for he is to be judged in his en¬ 
 tirety, as he had lived. He ought to be 
 judged as he lived, because it is about his 
 manner of living that there is question. 
 Judgment and sentence must affect all the 
 elements whereby he was enabled to live.” 
 He must be judged in soul and body united. 
 
 Tertullian, insisting on the necessity of a 
 judgment, thus addressed the opponents of 
 the resurrection : 
 
 “ If you pretend to divide soul from 
 body in the matter of reward and punish¬ 
 ment, you musf without delay, begin at once 
 to take them apart in the duties and functions 
 of life. If there is to be no sharing, of the 
 reward, there must be no cooperation in life. 
 Even when thinking, the soul acts by, with, 
 and through the flesh. As long as it is in 
 the body, it will act with it. It manifests its 
 very thoughts by aid of the flesh ; the coun¬ 
 tenance is its mirror. You charge the body 
 with wrong-doing, therefore it ought to be 
 punished. We count its virtues, and deem it 
 worthy of reward if innocent. 
 
 u Although the soul gives the impulse, and 
 commands the action, it is the body that exe¬ 
 cutes it. Can we believe God to be an unjust 
 judge, or a powerless one? He would be un- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 239 
 
 just if He deprived of its reward that portion 
 of man which has had so large a share in his 
 good works—powerless if he failed to punish 
 its companion in iniquity.” 
 
 Tertullian most unmercifully pursues into 
 their last stronghold the “solidaires” of his 
 time, tears their objections into tatters, and ex¬ 
 poses to the world the secret cause, ever old 
 and ever new, of their unbelief Let me quote 
 a few more of his expressions. It does one 
 good to see him chastise with vigorous arm 
 the pupils of doubt and incredulity. 
 
 “ You assert that the flesh is a blind instru¬ 
 ment, having no will of its own. You are 
 mistaken. The body can not be called an in¬ 
 strument; for an instrument is an external 
 implement—something foreign to the sub¬ 
 stance of man. The flesh, on the contrary, is 
 united intimately with the soul, even in the 
 maternal womb, clothes it, is born with it, and 
 is associated in all its operations. St. Paul 
 terms it the exterior man. Thus the body, 
 being the soul’s minister or co-agent, is sub¬ 
 ject to judgment. Not that it has of itself 
 any consciousness, but because it has* been 
 made part of that which has consciousness 
 of right and wrong—the soul. 
 
 “ Now St. Paul, although he knew that what 
 
240 The Christian Cemetery . 
 
 is done by the body is attributable to the soul, 
 yet he pronounces the body sinful; for fear 
 that people who knew it to act under the 
 soul’s impulse, would consider it irresponsible 
 and exempt from j udgment. And again, when 
 he attributes good works to the body, telling 
 us, for example, to glorify and carry God 
 in our bodies, he knows that these good works 
 are imputable to the soul. And yet it is to 
 the flesh he promises the reward. If this 
 were not the case, he would have neither 
 reproach nor encouragement to offer to the 
 body, which would be ignorant of the differ¬ 
 ence between good and evil, and consequently 
 would have nothing to fear nor to hope for on 
 the last day.” 
 
 Tertullian concludes by revealing the secret 
 of all this incredulity. I will conclude, too, 
 this letter, with the words written by his 
 powerful hand: “ These calumniators of the 
 flesh are they who love it most. No one lives 
 so fleshly as those who deny the resurrection 
 of the flesh. They deny this mystery because 
 they fear it; they fear it because they desire 
 to live according to the dictates of their vile 
 passions.” 
 
TWENTY-SIXTH LETTER. 
 
 We shall rise again: God’s Goodness demands it—Dignity 
 of the Human Body—God loves it—It is the Brother 
 of Christ—He must restore it to Life, or be wanting in 
 Love—Evidences of a future Resurrection written in 
 the Book of Nature—Written in our Bodies—Lan¬ 
 guage of St. Augustine—Review of these Letters. 
 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 God’s goodness requires that we should rise 
 again. God hates nothing that He has made. 
 Nihil odisti horum quce fecisti ’ On the con¬ 
 trary, He loves the works of His hands. See 
 with what fatherly solicitude He protects and 
 defends them. To the most insignificant in¬ 
 sect, and to the smallest blade of grass, He 
 supplies every thing requisite for its existence, 
 its beauty, its reproduction—for the varied 
 functions assigned to it in the plan of creation. 
 He loves the human body, because it is His 
 work. He loves it with special tenderness, 
 because it is the masterpiece of His hands. 
 All men of learning, pagan as well as Chris¬ 
 tian, who deserve to be called learned, have 
 
24 2 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 been overwhelmed with admiration and de¬ 
 light in contemplating it. The beauty of 
 form, the dignity of attitude, the grace of mo¬ 
 tion, the intelligent and animated expression 
 of face, the delicate perfection of the organs ; 
 all serving to distinguish it from the mere 
 animal; all these wonderful excellencies have 
 filled the physiologist’s soul with ecstasy. 
 Galen, after he had dissected the human 
 finger, exclaimed, that he had just been 
 chanting a beautiful hymn in praise of the 
 Creator. 
 
 But these are the least of our body’s pre¬ 
 rogatives. God was not satisfied with be¬ 
 stowing upon it external grace and beauty. 
 He lit it up, consecrated it, made it, so to 
 speak, divine, by breathing into it His own 
 breath. Yet men would consign to the fate 
 of a dead brute this palace of the soul, this 
 inseparable and necessary minister of its 
 noble operations, and with whom it shares the 
 sovereignty of creation. 
 
 “ This body of the Christian, which has 
 been so often sanctified, and so often the 
 means of sanctifying the soul; which, in 
 martyrdom, is ever the visible witness and de¬ 
 fender of truth ; this flesh so sacred, so holy, 
 the brother of Christ—you would abandon for- 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 243 
 
 ever to the corruption of the grave ! Where 
 are vour Christian feelings ?” 
 
 j O 
 
 “ No ! a thousand times no !” exclaims Ter- 
 tullian, “ it must not be thus. This flesh 
 which God has made to His own image ; 
 which He animated with His own breath ; 
 which He enthroned as king of nature, sanc¬ 
 tified by His sacraments ; whose purity He 
 loved, whose austerities He accepted, and 
 whose sufferings He crowned; this flesh, O 
 my God ! which has been so often Thy flesh, 
 will remain in corruption forever? No! a 
 thousand times no!” 
 
 Moreover, God loves our body, because it 
 is the image of His Son, the Word Incarnate, 
 who is the eternal object of His complaisance. 
 Now, no visible creature, except the human 
 body, bears resemblance to the Word made 
 flesh. When God looks down from heaven 
 upon a sinless body, He delights in telling the 
 astonished angels, “ This is my well-beloved 
 Son, in whom I am well pleased.” 
 
 God loves the body, even in its weakness. 
 “ We know,” says Tertullian, “ that God is 
 good ; from Christ’s words we know that He 
 is goodness itself. For through Christ He 
 has commanded us, first to love Himself, and 
 then to love our neighbor; He Himself giving 
 
 O 7 OO 
 
244 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 us the example by loving this flesh of ours, 
 which is closely related to Him. 
 
 “You say our flesh is infirm. I grant it. 
 But it is in infirmity that virtue attains 
 perfection. It is diseased; physicians are 
 required only for those who are sick. It is 
 lost; I came, says Christ, to save that which 
 was lost. It is a sinner; He replies, ‘ I will 
 not the death of a sinner, but that he be con¬ 
 verted and live.’ 
 
 “ Why afflict the flesh with those infirmities 
 which appeal to God, which hope in Him, and 
 which He regards by coming to their aid ? I 
 will tell you. If our flesh were free from 
 misery, the goodness, grace, mercy, and gene¬ 
 rosity of God would be without an object.” 
 
 God loves our flesh because of its sufferings. 
 Job said that compassion was born of God. 
 God’s heart is a never-failing fountain of com¬ 
 passion. How often does He tell us so in the 
 Scriptures ! It is the part of a large and mag¬ 
 nanimous heart, to show marked tenderness to 
 a weak, suffering creature. On this ground, 
 how strong are the claims of our body! 
 Come, my dear Frederic, to the cradle of 
 this newly-born infant. Look closely at this 
 little stranger, who seems to ha've fallen un¬ 
 expectedly on the surface of this cold and 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 245 
 
 cheerless world. This little thing is yourself 
 just twenty years ago, or perhaps it is myself 
 some sixty years ago. It is the reader of 
 these lines. It is every man or woman that 
 has come into the world. It has eyes, but 
 it does not see ; ears, but it hears nothing; 
 a mouth that can not speak; a hand which 
 it don’t know how to use ; feet, but it can 
 not walk, nor even stand erect. It knows 
 but one thing; and that it has not learned 
 —namely, to weep.* Other creatures are 
 clothed at their birth; some have feathers 
 or at least down, some have scales, some have 
 thick fur; but all are protected by their 
 peculiar covering, against heat and cold. 
 Man only is born naked, and liable to every 
 kind of suffering. Hence it is, that of all 
 animals, he is the only one that is born weep¬ 
 ing. Human life begins in the cradle, exists 
 on a cross, and ends in the grave. This 
 cross the body carries throughout the whole 
 of its journey. It is a very heavy cross, and, 
 unless assisted by a supernatural arm, we 
 would sink exhausted under its weight. For 
 it is not smoothly rounded, but rough and 
 angular, covered with knots and sharp points. 
 It fastens itself to man. Do what he may, he 
 
 * Plin. Hist. lib. vii. Proem. 
 
246 The Christian Cemetery. 
 
 can not shake it off. Every son of Adam 
 treads the weary road from his cradle to his 
 grave, beneath the weight of this onerous 
 burden. With heavy heart, tearful eyes, and 
 aching limbs, he drags behind a long clank- 
 ing chain of blighted hopes. 
 
 We have not even the comfort of owning 
 the whole of this life, short as it is. We en¬ 
 joy it only a moment at a time. Every day, 
 every hour, every minute we lose a portion 
 of it. As we increase, it decreases. We 
 have lost infancy, childhood, youth. Up to 
 to day, to this very hour, our time is dead. 
 Death’s icy fingers are even now clutching 
 the present moment—it is dying, dead, gone 
 forever. Whilst I say it is dead, I myself am 
 dying. 
 
 Who would condemn this body of ours to 
 such an existence ? Is it thus, that God 
 would show His tender love for our flesh ; the 
 masterpiece of His hand, the brother of the 
 Word Incarnate? Would He thus, of His 
 own free-will—that omnipotent, all-wise, and 
 all-loving Creator—treat His poor, helpless 
 creature ? 
 
 During the last six thousand years, myriads 
 of human beings have come upon this earth. 
 They passed a few short years of what could 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 247 
 
 hardly be called life, in darkness rather than 
 light, in struggle, in labor, in disease. Have 
 they gone back to the nothingness from 
 which they came ? Why were they created, 
 why did they tarry here? To seem to be 
 born, to suffer and die, just for the sake of 
 seeming to be born, to suffer and to die ? 
 How very worthy of Infinite Goodness ! 
 
 This is not all. In order to aggravate to 
 the utmost the tortures of our flesh, God im¬ 
 planted in the human heart such an uncon¬ 
 querable love of life, that nothing can extin¬ 
 guish or even weaken it. There is nothing 
 to prevent God from supplying us with the 
 means of satisfying this necessity. If there is 
 to be no future resurrection of the body, then 
 He does fail to supply the means ; heartlessly, 
 cruelly! He would have us call Him, Our 
 Father! And this infinitely happy Father in 
 heaven would keep His happiness to Himself, 
 and find an absurdly savage pleasure in seeing 
 Himself unfortunate in His creatures ! The 
 thought is impious. To affirm it, would be a 
 blasphemy not only against God, but against 
 reason. 
 
 We bear within ourselves, and all nature 
 with us, invincible proofs of a coming resur¬ 
 rection. Nature says that we must rise again. 
 
-4^ The Christian Cemetery 
 
 Read St. Paul to the Romans : “ For the ex¬ 
 pectation of'the creature, waiteth for the re¬ 
 velation of the sons of God. For the creature 
 was made subject to vanity, not \Villingly, but 
 by reason of Him that made it subject, in 
 hope :* * * § because the creatui;ef also itself shall 
 be delivered from the servitude of corruption, 
 into the liberty of the gloryt of the children 
 of God. For we know that every creature 
 groaneth, and travaileth in pain even until 
 now. And not only it, but ourselves also, 
 who have the first-fruits of the Spirit.” § 
 What mean these groanings, sufferings, 
 and tears of nature ? They mean, that 
 creation has not reached its destiny in re¬ 
 gard to material creatures, no more than it 
 has for men. They mean that creation 
 sighs not for its destruction, but for its 
 renovation; crying out like man, and with 
 man, “ Thy kingdom come.” St. Thomas 
 says, that all creatures have an invincible 
 aversion to be destroyed. Creatures, then, in 
 desiring the end of the world, do not seek 
 their annihilation, but their renovation and 
 
 * With the promise of a deliverance 
 
 \ Or creation. 
 
 \ For a glorious and blessed freedom. 
 
 § Pledge of a glorious resurrection. (Rom. 8 : 19-22 ) 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 249 
 
 resurrection to true life. This is a profession 
 of faith in the resurrection which nature never 
 ceases to chant. 
 
 St. Augustine teaches, that our body’s pro¬ 
 fession of faith in the resurrection is equally 
 loud and continued. “ My flesh,” says the 
 great doctor, borrowing the prophet's words, 
 “ cries out, I hunger and thirst for Thee, O 
 Lord ! And how does it show its hunger and 
 thirst? By seeking to be delivered from life’s 
 burden, and its ever-recurring needs. See to 
 what our flesh is condemned. If we do not 
 eat, we become weak and hungry; if we do 
 not drink, we become languid and thirsty. If 
 we prolong our waking hours, we grow weary 
 and succumb to sleep ; if we sleep too long, 
 we wake up unrefreshed. To eat and drink 
 wearies us ; if we stand up for a time, we 
 grow fatigued and must sit down; if we sit 
 too long, we become tired and must walk. 
 There is nothing durable in life. ' Every¬ 
 where fatigue, disgust, and corruption. What 
 connection is there between these deficiencies 
 and the resurrection promised by Our Lord ? 
 They are so many voices crying out, We hun¬ 
 ger after incorruption. Yes, our flesh is hun¬ 
 gry for God. A prisoner in the wilderness 
 of this world, its every pain, its every fatigue, 
 
250 The Christian Cemetery 
 
 means, I hunger and thirst for my resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 I should now explain the glory and bless¬ 
 ings of the soul and body in the resurrection. 
 But in our correspondence, entitled Life is 
 not Life , I have expressed all that I knew on 
 the subject. You have not forgotten it, and 
 it seems superfluous to repeat. Suffice it to 
 recall to your memory St. Augustine’s expres¬ 
 sion, “ If the prison is so beautiful, what must 
 be the palace ? If exile is so pleasant, what 
 must be our fatherland ?” “ Si tanta fecis 
 
 no bis in care ere, quid ages in palatio / ” t 
 
 Before we part, my dear Frederic, let me 
 review briefly our pleasant correspondence. 
 
 Up to the present time, the revolutionists 
 have attacked, profaned, defiled, and destroyed 
 churches, chapels, convents, and religious 
 houses. They have torn down the cross, and 
 divested education of every religious feature. 
 One little spot of earth had escaped their van¬ 
 dalism —the cemetery . They saw that their 
 victory was incomplete, unless they ruined 
 this sacred place, which embodies the funda¬ 
 mental mysteries of Christianity. With dia¬ 
 bolical malice, they seek to sink society, in 
 the nineteenth century, below the level of the 
 
 * Enarr. in Ps. Edit. Gaume. 
 
 f Soliloq. c. 21. n. 1. 
 
In the Nineteenth Century . 251 
 
 savage; for even the savage respects the 
 sanctity of a grave, believing as he does in 
 the future existence of the soul. Under the 
 name of “ solidaires,” they would exterminate 
 every dogma of Christianity, and thus lead 
 men to the denial of every duty flowing from 
 such doctrines. 
 
 Society’s salvation depends upon belief in 
 a future life. This dogma, together with its 
 deductions of immortality, resurrection, re¬ 
 wards and punishments, is loudly and impres¬ 
 sively taught by the Christian cemetery; 
 taught in countless ways; by the sanctity of 
 the place itself, by emblems and inscriptions, 
 and even by its very title of cemetery, which 
 means the resting-place of those who have 
 fallen asleep in the Lord. The destruction of 
 the Christian cemetery means the destruction 
 of Christian society. To secularize it, and 
 thus destroy its Christian meaning, is the aim 
 of modern atheists. 
 
 Catholics ought to learn a lesson from their 
 furious hatred. For it teaches plainly, that it 
 has become necessary to defend this last re¬ 
 fuge of faith against Freemasons, materialists, 
 “ solidaires,” and highly developed monkeys, 
 who seek to make themselves and us soulless 
 clods of dirt. Of late, anti-religious funerals, 
 
2^2 1 he Christian Cemetery 
 
 conducted by the “solidaires,” have become 
 very common in France, Belgium, and many 
 other countries of Europe. These pompous 
 parades, in broad daylight, of materialism, are 
 becoming as epidemic as suicide. The more 
 vulgar and senseless they are, the more dan¬ 
 gerous they become, by flattering the vicious 
 instincts of corrupt men, who would be glad 
 to have nothing to fear beyond the grave, in 
 order to enjoy the privilege of doing what 
 they choose on this side. To do what they 
 choose, means to upset and destroy social in¬ 
 stitutions, with no other fear but that of the 
 police. Every one understands that this 
 would be the delivering up of honest citizens, 
 together with their property, honor, liberty, 
 and life, to the thief and assassin. 
 
 The object of the foregoing letters is to 
 rouse all Catholics—bishops, priests, and peo¬ 
 ple—to an immediate, bold, and united protest 
 against the abolition of Christian burial; to 
 establish the right of the Church to the own¬ 
 ership and guardianship of the cemetery ; to 
 show the advantages of burial in consecrated 
 ground ; to vindicate human nature, religion, 
 and society from the aspersions of the “soli¬ 
 daires to make men hear the eloquent 
 warnings given us by the Christian cemetery, 
 
In the Nineteenth Century. 253 
 
 on the dignity of our bodies, the universal 
 brotherhood of men, the immortality of the 
 soul, and the resurrection of the body. 
 
 God grant that my labor be not in vain 1 
 Farewell, dear friend : pray for me ! 
 
( 
 
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