politely, yet decidedly, declined. He wished to pur chase the field with money "for a possession". —- he wished to have it "made sure for a burying-place." He desired a place as his own, which he might consecrate as a place of repose for his dead in all coming time. His soul shuddered at the thought of committing such a treasure as the remains of his departed wife to the sepulchres of Heth, where he could not himself exercise a devout watch over them. Amid the green and rural scenes of Machpelah-for "all the trees that were in the field, and in all the borders round about, were made sure" he would have her body to rest, in token of his belief that she still lived in the ever-green bowers of Paradise; that he still stood in living communion with her; and that he expected to see her again in that world where death is unknown. He desired that the glorious renovation which each returning spring-time effected, amid the rural scenes of Machpelah, might be to him a sweet pledge of that new and eternal life which should once awake from her tomb, and an earnest of the revival of those affectionate ties which had been but temporarily sundered by death.

The conduct of the pious and mourning Patriarch, in this whole transaction, is very significant when carefully studied. There were the "choice sepulchres of the Hittites offered to him, in which to bury his beloved Sarah; but how, in that case, could he have been assured that her bones would lie till the final day in peace? As once in Egypt another king arose which knew not Joseph, who did evil to Israel; so, in the land of the Hittites, another generation would soon arise, who would not know Abraham, and would show

no respect for his dead. How too, if he buried in their sepulchres, could he be assured that he would be permitted one day to lie by her side in death? Above all, how could he then visit her grave in quiet, as Mary did the grave of her Lord, undisturbed and unseen by the cold world, to shed the silent tear of affection to her memory, and refresh his sorrowing heart with the hope of speedy reunion in heaven? No wonder that he insisted on having it as his own: "For as much money as it is worth ye shall give it me, for a possession of a burying-place among you.”

This is but an instance of the general tenderness. and affection which the Jews in all ages manifested towards the remains of their kindred dead. That the same feeling was sacredly cherished among the Jews in later ages is evident from a beautiful passage in Ecclesiasticus, an apocryphal book written about three hundred years before Christ. Chap. xxxviii. 16. "My son, let tears fall down over the dead, and begin to lament, as if thou hadst suffered great harm thyself; and then cover his body according to the custom, and neglect not his burial." For another beautiful exhibition of this feeling, read Tobit i. 17-21; ii. 1-9. The same may also be seen from the well-known customs of embalming their bodies, and of giving them decent and respectable burial. It certainly speaks strongly of their belief that the dead were still theirs; that the tie was not finally and for ever broken; and that the grave, which they watched and watered with the tears of continued affection, would yet yield back to them their beloved dead.

II. The strong desire, which reigned in the hearts

of the Old Testament saints, to be buried together with their kindred in the same place, is also a proof that they believed in a perpetuated union with their friends through death in a future life.

They had lived together in life; they wished to lie together in death; to rise together in the resurrection, and to dwell together in everlasting habitations. How significant and affecting is the dying request of Jacob! "And 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."* Afterwards he made the same request of all his sons, standing together around his dying couch: "And when Jacob made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people."+

can

What a moving scene! Are you a painter-can you throw it upon canvass? Are you a poet you describe it? Have you refined Christian sensibilities can you feel it? Can you think that the dying Patriarch, thus commending his body to the care of his sons under the solemnity of an oath, and desiring so affectingly to be buried with his fathers, believed this to be an eternal separation from them? No. He felt that their communion was unbroken, and he wished that their bodies might sleep side by side, so that when their souls and bodies should be reunited, † Gen. xlix. 33.

* Gen. xlvii. 29, 30.

they might be "raised up together," with their Redeemer in the air, "and so be ever with the Lord."

The same feeling had reigned in the heart of pious Abraham, the father of the faithful. He had this in his mind when he purchased Machpelah. He did not need so large a piece of ground for Sarah alone. He wished that field to become the family burial-place for his posterity in time to come, that all who proceeded from his loins might lie around him in the peaceful arms of death, and awake with him in the resurrection morn. In this he succeeded. When he himself died, it is particularly mentioned that he was buried in the same place. "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre; the field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife."*

In this same spot Jacob was afterwards buried by his own earnest request, together with many other members of the Patriarchal families. Listen! "I am to be gathered to my people," says dying Israel; "bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite, for a possession of a buryingplace." How particularly he describes it, that they may not be mistaken as to the spot! Then how affectingly, in the next verse, he gives the reason why he desires to lie in that place! "There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah!" What † Gen. lxix. 29, 31.

* Gen. xxiv. 9, 10.

a touching request what a moving reason! Why this desire which they felt, and which all more or less feel, of being buried with parents, grand-parents, wives, brothers, sisters, and near kindred, if it does not indicate the belief that there is also a fellowship among the dead? that if we follow the leadings of these instinctive emotions of nature, they will bring us again to those whom death has hid, but not taken away from us?

What lovely associations are these which cluster around the sacred shades of Machpelah! The future history of this burying-place of kindred seems strikingly to shadow forth the eternal union of its silent sleepers. It is stated by Josephus, fifty years after Christ, that in his day this place was still in good repair-that the posterity of Abraham erected splendid sepulchres there, which were, when he wrote, still to be seen. Mention is also made of this place by Eusebius and Jerome, and also by other church fathers, down as late as the eighth century. Even at this day the sepulchres of the Patriarchs are shown to the pilgrims in the Holy Land, by the monks on Hebron; and so well do all the circumstances agree with Scripture notices, that travellers, the most intelligent, see no reason to doubt that the tombs they behold are those of the Patriarchs who were buried in Machpelah over four thousand years. ago. "I know nothing," says the learned Dr. Robinson, who visited the place in 1838, "that should lead us to question the correctness of the tradition, which regards this as the place of sepulchre of Abraham and the other Patriarchs, as recorded in the book of Genesis. On the contrary, there is much to strengthen it."