numbers, and armed with weapons, to fight, if need were, for their prey. But their zeal was futile; the archbishop was buried; and so well had he taken his measures, and so well did the brotherhood of the cathedral (feeling their own interest therein) second his intentions, that the disappointed Augustinians were totally unable to discover the tomb.

This stratagem altered the tide of affairs: other archbishops followed Cuthbert's example, and in after days the interment here of the murdered Becket completed the supremacy of the cathedral over its theretofore more prosperous neighbour, St. Augustine's Abbey.

Veneration for the graves of esteemed churchmen, and more especially for the relics gradually accumulated in churches, brought devotees from all parts of the world, and tombs were soon crowded around the 'holy earth.'

CHAPTER IV.

INTERMENT.

CHURCHES AND CHURCHYARDS-continued.

FROM the first ages of Christianity the desire to

be buried in holy earth has been great; nor has this craving been by any means confined to Christians. Who is not aware of the earnest and pious zeal of the Hindoo to be borne to the banks of his holy river, the Ganges, to die; or of the earnest care with which the Moslem of the distant cities, when he feels his last hour to be come, turns himself in the direction of Mecca-his Ganges-his Jerusalem?

It is the same feeling which causes the wealthy Jew to import from the Holy Land soil wherewith to line his coffin; but numbers of Jews who have not wealth, and who must undergo all the toil and privation which even in these days accompany a poor man's journey, are continually arriving at Jerusalem to sleep their last long sleep in the sepulchres of their fathers of old.

On the same principle the Campo Santa at Pisa was filled with earth from the Holy Land, brought in the ships of the Pisan Crusaders.

On the same principle, corrupted, accrued the great error of supposing morsels of clay, taken from the grave of a holy man, to be a preservative against disease.

In one of the works of the holy Christian fathers now laid open to the unlearned reader, there is a most interesting account of the 'motherly and pious affection' with which a bereaved parent, Flora,' desires that her lost son should be buried at the memorial1 of some saint. Her wish was gratified, for he was buried in the basilica of Felix the Confessor; and in consequence of her anxiety to know whether such burial profit a man after death, St. Augustine wrote the treatise On Care to be had for the Dead, which has been a reference and standard authority ever since. On the especial point above referred to, he says

That a person is buried at the memorials of the martyrs, this, I think, so far profits the departed,

1 The only reason why the name memorials, or monuments, is given to those sepulchres of the dead which became speedily distinguished is, that they recall to memory, and by putting in mind cause us to think of, them who by death are withdrawn from the eyes of the living, that they may not by forgetfulness be also withdrawn from men's hearts. For both the term memorial most plainly shows this, and monument is so named from monishing—that is, putting in mind.-ST. AUGUSTINE (Oxford translation).

that, while commending him also to the martyr's patronage, the affection of supplication on his behalf is increased.'

A further quotation from the same treatise will not be displaced here :—

'So then, all these things, care of funeral, bestowal in sepulture, pomp of obsequies, are more for comfort of the living than for help to the dead. If it at all profit the ungodly to have costly sepulture, it shall harm the godly to have vile sepulture or none. Right handsome obsequies in sight of men did that rich man who was clad in purple receive of the crowd of his housefolk; but far more handsome did that poor man who was full of sores obtain of the ministry of angels, who bore him not out into a marble tomb, but into Abraham's bosom bore him on high.

'Yet it follows not that the bodies of the departed are to be despised and flung aside, and above all of just and faithful men, which bodies as organs and vessels to all good works their spirit hath holily used. For if a father's garment and ring, and whatever such like, is the more dear to those whom they leave behind, the greater their affection is towards their parents, in no wise are the bodies themselves to be spurned, which truly we wear in more familiar and close conjunction than any of our putting on. For these pertain not to ornament or aid which is applied

from without; but to the very nature of man. Whence also the funerals of the just men of old were with dutiful piety cared for, and their obsequies celebrated, and sepulture provided; and themselves while living did, touching burial or even translation of their bodies, give charge to their sons.'

There are striking instances of the existence of this feeling in modern times. Few persons would in choice be the first buried in a new churchyard, and for this reason, possibly, the cemetery of St. George's, Queen-square, remained nearly if not entirely empty until the ground was broken to receive the remains of Mr. Nelson, the honoured author of The Fasts and Festivals of the Church. Then other interments followed quickly.

But an instance strong as that of any saint or martyr of old is given us in the tomb of John Bunyan, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, in Bunhill-fields. So numerous have been and still are 'the dying requests of his idolators to be buried as near as possible to the place of his interment, that it is not now possible to obtain a grave near him, the whole surrounding earth being entirely preoccupied by dead bodies to a very considerable distance.'

In an old Spanish law the following reasons are given for burying in churchyards:

1. Because the persons were Christians.