God, and the formularies of our Church, to quote, with sorrow, the words of the Prophet: "This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord." (Isaiah xxx. 9.)

But let us now resume our subject, and pass to the consideration of customs, deeply interesting, as they may be traced to those feelings which are common to our nature. For, to die in our own country, and to be buried with our kindred, is a feeling too strong ever to be wholly eradicated from the human breast.

The Patriarch Abraham, when a stranger, and sojourner in the land of Canaan, and whilst indifferent to all other things, ardently desired "the possession of a burying place," where he might deposit the remains of Sarah, his wife, and where his own might rest in hope of a heavenly inheritance. As early as the time of Abraham, the custom of possessing family burial places was already well established; and that it was then not unusual to

provide them before they were actually required, appears by the reply of "the children of Heth" to the request of Abraham, that they would grant him for a burying place one of their unoccupied sepulchres: "Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre." (Gen xxiii. 6.) On the situation of the sepulchre which Abraham made choice of, that it was "in the end of the field," one of our old divines has this pious and just remark," that whatever our possessions are, there is a sepulchre at the end of them;"

"Man's whole domain, at last, a turf, or stone."

But these feelings, which the sons of Heth manifested in no less degree than Abraham himself, and had long been accustomed to act upon, prove that they were not peculiar to the Patriarch, but inherent in the whole family of man. The Patriarch Jacob twice expressed

the anxious desire he felt, to be buried with his

fathers, in the land of Canaan : first, to Joseph alone, and afterwards to all his sons together. For when "the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt. But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head," (Gen. xlvii. 29, 30, 31.) in adoration, and praise to God, for the promise of Canaan; and the solemn assurance he had now received from his son Joseph, of his being buried there with his fathers. Again we find the Patriarch speaking on the same subject, which so deeply interested his feelings, and which, during his abode in Egypt, seemed, of all others, to dwell the most upon his mind; for when on his death

bed, he had blessed all his sons,

"he charged

them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite; there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. The purchase of the field, and of the cave that is therein, was from the children of Heth." (Gen. xlix. 29-32.) Thus full and explicit were the last injunctions of the dying Patriarch, when he charged not Joseph alone, but all his sons together, to see that he was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers.

Nor was the Patriarch Joseph himself less concerned respecting the place of his burial, when he "gave commandment concerning his bones," (Heb. xi. 22.) and " took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." (Gen. 1. 25.) Those bones, which he left to them as a certain pledge of their

deliverance, he bound them, with an oath, to deposit in the sepulchre of his fathers; a grave in the dust of Canaan being more precious to him than the noblest sepulchre in the land of Egypt. When the spies went up to search the land, particular mention is made of Hebron, and "they ascended by the south and came unto Hebron." (Numbers xiii. 22.) It was near to the cave of Machpelah, where the patriarchs were buried; and what other spot in all the land of Canaan could so deeply interest their feelings, as the sepulchre of their fathers? of whom they could say, "these all died in faith." (Heb. xi. 13.)

But with all due consideration for the faith of the patriarchs, who looked to Canaan as the inheritance of their children's children, and their earnest desire to rest in its bosom, as the land of promise; they had a strong, natural affection for the burying place of their fathers; an affection, as we have shewn, not peculiar to themselves, nor yet confined to her who said