ground, and whatever food they took-as has been already noticed, was reckoned unclean, and polluted every partaker, Hosea, ix. 4. They neither dressed themselves -changed their garments, nor shaved themselves, nor pared their nails, nor saluted anybody; their faces and heads were uncovered: they had mourners for the purpose, both men and women, that made a trade of it, and could make the most doleful outcries and howling; and were used to curse the days on which some eminent disaster had happened, Amos, v. 16; Jeremiah, ix. 17; Job, iii. 8. They mourned excessively for an only son, and for a first-born, as his death cut off the remembrance, or at least the honor of their family, Zechariah, xii. 10. The priests mourned only for near relations, and the high-priest for none, Leviticus, xxi. 1-12. After the death of such as bad no friends left to bewail them, some persons of character of the place acted the part of mourning friends, and were in like manner comforted. It was reckoned a very pious work to comfort mourners; and when they came to the mourners, they stood around them, ten in a row, and approaching towards them, one by one, wished them comfort from heaven. If they sat, it was on the ground, and the mourner had the chief seat. The friends came not to comfort them, till after the interment, and not many, till the third or fourth day after the decease, John, xi. 19, 39. They sometimes went to the graves to lament their dead, and so the Turkish women do to this day. The Jews had a kind of prayer, or rather benediction of God, as the raiser of the dead, which they repeated, as they mourned, or even passed the graves of their dead. The Jews in Chaldea did not mourn and weep, but mourned one towards an

other: they durst not openly bewail their misery, but did it secretly, Ezekiel, xxiv. 23."

PARAGRAPH XXVIII.

Monuments of the Dead are Indices, pointing to a Life beyond Sheol.

The commendable practice of erecting tombs or memorial insignia of the dead, can be traced to every age and nation, the history of which has been transmitted to the present time. Some are necessary to protect the dead against the ravages of predaceous beasts or the outrages of reckless man; others, to mark the sacred spot where their remains are deposited; and still others, to express for them, in an emphatic manner, the love and esteem of the surviving relatives and friends. In every instance, sepulchral monuments may be justly regarded as evidence of a belief in the existence of a principle in man, which survives the decay and dissolution of the body, and as indices pointing mortals to a higher world, where death. will be unknown, and sorrow shall for ever cease. Το dust; to dead bones; to the elements, which once made up the organism of the human body, but which now enter into new chemical combinations, and form diverse bodies either in the mineral world or the organic kingdoms, and which, besides, are insentient and unconscious, mankind do not erect monuments! On the contrary, all this display of sepulchral architecture, this zeal to perpetuate the memory of the dead, from the rude stone-heap to the stately mausoleum, from the plain, slight pillar to the massive and magnificent pyramid, is sacred to the dead that live!

The attention of the reader is now invited to a concise

reference to Jewish customs, elucidative of this interesting theme. In Genesis, xxxv. 19–20, we read: "And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem, and Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." From 2 Kings, xxiii. 16-17, it appears that the sepulchers that were in the "High Places" of the Ten Tribes, were not mere graves, but engraved or sculptured memorials of the dead; for when king Josiah saw the "sepulcher of the man of God," he asked: "What title is that that I see?" meaning, no doubt, the sepulchral inscription on theprophet's tomb. Absalom, who aspired to be king and expected, at last, to sleep with his fathers, or in other words, to be buried with regal honors, was sadly disappointed of his ambitious hopes, and found sepulture in a lonely wood; yet a humble memorial—the primitive graveepitaph, designated the spot where rested the remains of the comely, fair-haired son of the psalmist-king: “And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him: and all Israel fled every one to his tent." The bodies of Achan and of the king of Ai, the one stoned to death and the other hung, Joshua, vii. 25-26; viii. 29, were respectively entombed under large piles of stone-"a great heap of stones," in the language of the text, which still remained in the time of the sacred historian, and which—even in these unattractive cases, attested the ineradicable regard for the memory of the dead, and an undying faith in something transterrestrial and immortal in the human breast.

The scribes and Pharisees too built and garnished tombs:

sometimes from base motives, but often also, no doubt, to show their respect and zeal for the memory of great and good men. The Savior chides them severely in view of these obituary deeds, but simply because-we may suppose, they associated selfish and sinister designs with an otherwise honorable and praiseworthy custom. His words, which are recorded in Matthew, xxiii. 29, are thus scathingly expressed: "Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous." Doctor Clarke, the erudite commentator, in commenting upon this salient text, uses the following language: "It appears," says he, "that through respect to the memory of the prophets, the scribes and Pharisees often repaired and sometimes beautified their tombs. M. De la Vallé, in his journey to the Holy Land, says, that when he visited the cave of Mach pelah, he saw some Jews honoring a sepulcher, for which they have a great veneration, with lighting at it wax candles, and burning perfumes. See Harmer, Volume III., page 416. In ditto, page 424, we are informed that building tombs over those reputed saints, or beautifying those already built, is a frequent custom among the Mohammedans."

PARAGRAPH XXIX.

Job and the Resurrection.

Job-the weary and heavy-laden, still buoyant with a glimmer of hope, writes, xix. 25–27: "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom

I shall see for myself,* and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me:"† though my heart grows faint in its intense longing for him.

Does Job here literally and in the usual acceptation of the term, teach a resurrection from the dead? This question-as will be readily perceived, involves very grave issues, and therefore demands the exercise of great candor and frankness in an attempt towards its solution. The phrases, "My Redeemer liveth," and, "In my flesh shall I see God," may be deemed the salient facts in the text. The word Redeemer is a translation of the Hebrew appellation Goel-an avenger: Goel Haddam-an avenger of blood, thus designated in allusion to the lex talionis, or law of retaliation, common among men during the earlier stages of society, when the blood of the slain is supposed to cry for vengeance at the hand of the nearest kinsman. In this primitive sense however-when it implied a min

*I, the wretched sufferer, who is near death, shall yet see him in the character of Goel: the avenger.

The words in the text, are rendered more readily intelligible by a reference to the four verses immediately preceding it. They attest the deep conviction of Job, that he suffered innocently; that his Friends grievously wronged him; that he should certainly be restored to health and happiness; and that God would signally interfere in his behalf, and do him ample justice. In the twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses, he, therefore, utters the reasonable wish, that the memorable words, expressing these firm convictions, might be written in a book, in indelible characters; nay, that they might "be engraven with an iron pen, in a rock," for a perpetual memorial of his innocence-in respect to the cause of his suffering, and as it was manifested in his unwavering confidence in his final acceptance with God." For," says he, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," etc. I add, that records thus engraved, are-according to Harma's "Beobachtungen ueber den Orient," not unusual in the East.