A Sabbath Morning in Greenwood
‘TPHERE is but one Greenwood in the world. It has no peer among the cemeteries of Eui’ope. “Kensal Green,” near London, is mainly interesting from its containing the ashes of several modern men of genius, like Hood, Jerrold, and Thackeray. Pere la Chaise is a crowded huddle of marbles, without order or comeliness. The charm of plain, unornamented “Grange Cemetery” all centres around that spot where Chalmers and Hugh Miller slumber. Among American burialplaces Greenwood fairly bears away the crown. “We have seen nothing yet like this,” said two of the London delegates to the Evangelical Alliance, as they sat with us, at a rich October sunset hour, on the brow of “Battle Hill,” and gazed over the wonderful panorama. They ranked that view next to Niagara.
The true time to see Greenwood is when its thousands of dogwood trees are blossoming in all their glory. The creamy white contrasts with the tender green of opening leaves, as the white sea-foam flashes amid the emerald waters in a driving gale.
At every turn there is a new apocalypse of beauty. One would expect to find such a labyrinth of loveliness crowded with visitants; but Prospect Park is filled every day with throngs who go there for the hundredth time, while the matchless avenues of Greenwood show only “here and there a traveller.” So true is it that the mass of mankind care less to see than to be seen.
Never did we behold Greenwood on a Sabbath morning until lately; and never before did we so feel its bewitching, subduing, and tranquillizing spell. We went at an early hour, to stand beside the open grave of a friend’s only and beloved son, whose “purposes were broken off” by sudden death’. It seemed almost a mockery to the heart-stricken parents, that the sun beamed so brightly and the birds caroLed their morning songs so blithely among the trees.
As we rode under the gateway to the cemetery, on the morning of a day that was a perfect “bridal of the earth and sky,” we seemed to have entered another world. It was as when, of old, the women and the two disciples came “early to the sepulchre.” The city of the living was left behind. The city of the dead greeted us to its voiceless streets. But no gloom clouded the pure golden air. No wails smote upon our ears. Peace, joy, praise, seemed to fill the whole leafy temple, as the strains of an organ fill the vaulted arches of a cathedral. It seemed as if Greenwood, with its congregation one hundred thousand strong, was breaking out into its morning hymn, —
“Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise!”
Here, too, they are keeping their Sabbath, as aforetime! Here the departed pastors are mingling with their flocks, as they once did in yonder sanctuaries. Here is gathered the vast
Sabbath school of forty thousand children, all clothed in white raiment. I see them not; yet they are beside me and around me. My own precious boy is among them. From his lips I seem to catch the familiar strain of his favorite child-hymn, —
“Jesus loves me, he who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide.
He has washed away my sin,
And bade his little child come in.”
Other children, in neighboring plots of green earth, take up the strain. No lessons are repeated here this morning. No sermons are delivered in this vast sanctuary. No profane pride flaunts its fineries and parades its silk and velvet in this congregation. No erudition sets the audience agape with wonder. But from the grassy homes in which the little children lie, and from the statelier vaults of marble and granite, from the heights of “Ocean Hill,” and from beside the placid “Sylvan Water,” there chimes forth one unbroken song of morning adoration to the Conqueror of the grave, — “Christ the Lord is risen to-day. Our triumphant, holy day. Loud the song of victory raise; Shout our great Redeemer’s praise.”
And so we pass along through, the enchanting avenues and paths, which were to us but so many aisles in one beautiful temple. In one avenue we passed the tombs of some of our “spiritual children,” who had been born unto us in the Gospel. They did not recognize their old pastor as he walked by. In another plot we discovered the name of a dear friend, whose dying-bed we had attended. She needed no more kind words of consolation. The last tear was dry.
On Forest Eidge, beneath a massive stone cross, our old friend and benefactor. Dr. Edward Eobinson, has found his sepulchre. No more does he explore the streets or ruins of Jerusalem: he has entered that new Jerusalem, which is as a “bride adorned for her husband.” Over the hill from his tomb we come to the resting-place of two sisters, one of whom had numbered one hundred years on earth, and the other one hundred and seven! Poor old pilgrims, were they not wearied out and glad to lie down and sleep together?
On the green slope beside Crescent Water sleeps Bethune. The marble tablet at the gate bears his sweet, joyful line, “It is not death to die.” My mind runs back to that Sabbath in Florence when the old home-sick pastor bade adieu to earth, to join “the brotherhood on high.” We wander on further. Here, on a lofty knoll, is a superb monument, bearing the marble effigy of the sinking steamer “Arctic,” and the names of several who went down with her into the deep. Voices seem to be whispering in the air “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it;” “there shall be no more sea!”
And so, as we wander on, every aisle of this Greenwood sanctuary was vocal to the inner ear. The hour for worship with the living was drawing near, and we turned homeward. For one moment we halted in the little precious plot of ground, where Calverley, the sculptor, has carved the features of a sunny child-face, which we hope yet to meet in Heaven. Under it is written, in his broken childish speech, his last Sunday-school text: “Hide me under de sadow of dy wing.”
A flowering dogwood tree stands beside the spot, white with a thousand blossoms. Beautiful sentinel of the tomb! thy blossoms shall soon fall to the ground like the hopes that are buried here! But from the Sabbath air of heaven there floats down to my ear the celestial message: “They are without fault before the throne of God. They see His face and His name is written on their foreheads! “.