purification, and the holy calm that come after tears, as sunshine follows the shower.

The advantages of rural cemeteries are so obvious, that a large city which did not have several of them within easy access, would be deemed uncivilized. Indeed we may go farther and say that it is now considered quite as essential in the arrangements of our social life (certainly in this land), to own a burial lot in the country, as to own any kind of property in the city.

Money expended in the purchase and decoration of it is repaid more than a thousand fold, not in the perishable coin itself, but in that which money is rarely privileged to buy-the consolation of living grief and solace in the dying hour. Such a burial lot has now by a beautiful custom, come to be a part-and not the least precious part-of the family property. The household gods divide their time between it and the dwelling in which we live. The garden before the door is not more dear to us than the green spot where our father, mother, brother or sister sleeps, and the old tree that has shaded generations of happy children not more sacred in our eyes than that which stretches a green protection above the graves of those we love and venerate.

VI.

Cypress Hills Cemetery.

THE model cemetery of this country, and indeed of the world, is that of CYPRESS HILLS, on Long Island, near New York City. It combines so many advantages in its dimensions, its distance from the great city, its admirable location, the diversified and picturesque nature of its grounds, the splendid panorama of nature discernible from its breezy heights, its native graces and its artistic accessories, that without a full and minute description of CYPRESS HILLS, a work of this kind would be altogether incomplete. It furnishes the proper climax to the whole subject of which we treat for it unites, in one, all that the civilization, the taste, the art, the piety of man have ever devised to adorn and sanctify the burial places of the dead. It brings down the history of cemeteries to our own day, and indicates, more fully perhaps than any other object that we could select, the refinement, and the enlightened progress of our age.

CYPRESS HILLS CEMETERY was established in 1848, under the general law, conferring upon voluntary associations the right of establishing Rural Cemeteries. It was a necessity, and not a specula

tion. It was imperatively called for by the exigencies of this mighty and growing city, which at that time had no adequate accommodations for the sepulture of its dead. The churchyards within the town were choked up with graves. There was scarcely room to wedge in an additional interment. They were a terror to the dying-to whose weary soul desirous of rest, a burial within their stifling and noisy precincts offered little to soothe the hour of dissolution. They were coming to be a positive injury to the living, "breathing," as they did "a pestilence abroad," and perpetually suggesting all that was awful and revolting of the grave and nothing that was humanizing and sanctifying. The few country cemeteries then in existence were either so small that they were rapidly filling up, or were already monopolized by the wealthy purchasers of burial lots, so that the general rural interment of the masses was practically excluded. At this crisis a number of public-spirited and wealthy gentlemen conceived the plan of converting Cypress Hills, which had long, under that beautiful name, been a favorite resort to the lover of nature, into a cemetery. The project was immediately pushed to a realization with an enterprise, liberality and skill, which do infinite honor to the hearts that planned and the heads that executed it.

The pleasing variety of hill and dale were already there. There were the dry and graceful slopes (with scarcely an interval of level ground) upon which, as experience has long since shown, inter

ments should always be made. Little lakes of sweet water were set here and there by the hand of God, in the frames of green valleys. A luxuriant growth of majestic trees; which it would require a whole generation of art to rear-and without which no burial place is worthy the name—already lent a dignity and beauty to the spot. And what was far better than all, and as much a part of the natural advantages of the location, as the lakes, the slopes or the trees themselves-the elevation of the grounds (one of the highest within twenty miles of New York), commanded a magnificent view, at every point of the compass, to a horizon of twenty or thirty miles. Some places it has been said, were evidently designed by nature for battle fields. Cypress Hills was as evidently ordained for a cemetery. But as the color and perfume of flowers may be heightened by cultivation, so the graces of Cypress Hills were improved by art. Gravelled walks were laid out and environed by box. Beautiful parterres were planned and studded with roses and sweetscented shrubs. The little ragged inequalities of knolls were smoothed away, and fine carriage roads constructed in the valleys. The rubbish and refuse matter which had accumulated for centuries upon the shores of the lakes were removed, and dry pebbly beaches revealed. Trees, dead and rotten, and fast sinking into the burial place of their ancestors, were cut down, and thrifty young saplings, (the most beautiful and costly varieties) set in their places. No amenity of art-nothing that wealth directed by

refined and cultivated taste-could suggest, was neglected. And thus Cypress Hills, beautiful in its own birthright, became idealized into still higher forms of loveliness. The grounds, we may here add, were consecrated with touching and appropriate ceremonies on the 21st of November, 1848.

With these general introductory remarks and brief history of the organization of the cemetery, we invite the reader to a closer and more detailed inspection of its conveniences and beauties.

While the directors, with a wise precaution, located the cemetery at such a distance from New York and Brooklyn (formerly Brooklyn and Williamsburgh) that no increase in the size of those cities will ever be likely to encroach upon the domains of the dead, the advantages of frequent cheap and easy access were not neglected. One of the best features in the establishment of the Cypress Hills is, that it is readily reached—and that too by a variety of pleasant routes, as follows:

By the Long Island Railroad, whose cars pass the cemetery several times a day, stopping regularly, both ways, opposite the front entrance of the grounds.

By the Brooklyn and Jamaica plank road, upon which a line of omnibusses is constantly passing and repassing the cemetery through the day.

By the Williamsburgh and Cypress Hills from Williamsburgh directly to the new western entrance, shortening the distance to about four miles. For the residents of Williamsburgh and the upper