historian of Surrey, in which county, at Ockley, it has been, until lately, the custom, from time immemorial, for betrothed lovers to plant rose-trees at the head of the grave of a deceased lover, should either party die before the marriage. Camden describes the churchyard as thickly planted with rose-trees, in his time; Aubrey records the same custom; and John Evelyn, who lived at Wotton Place, near Ockley, thus testifies the observance there -of the maidens yearly planting and decking the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes. Now, the Romans were much at Ockley; the Roman road (Stane-street) passes through the village to this day; so that we are inclined to agree with Mr. Manning that the rose-planting at Ockley is a relic of a Roman custom.

At Barnes, in Surrey, on the south bank of the Thames, is an interesting observance of this flower rite. On the south side of the church, between two buttresses, inclosed by wooden rails, a few rose-trees are cultivated, in pursuance of the will of Mr. Edward Rose, citizen of London, who, according to a tablet affixed to the church wall, died in 1653, having bequeathed to the parish of Barnes, the sum of 201. for the purchase of an acre of land, from the rent of which the churchwardens were enjoined to keep in repair the paling of the inclosure, and maintain a succession of rose-trees; the surplus funds to be applied for the benefit of the poor.

We find in a poem of the Saxons :

"Mark my hillock with the simple flower." Shakspeare's Arviragus, in Cymbeline, says:

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Outsweeten'd not thy breath.

*

*

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.

And in Hamlet, ("that piece of Shakspeare's which appears to have most affected English hearts,") the bewildered Ophelia sings:

Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go,

With true-love showers;

besides which we have the affecting flower-strewing scene. The appropriateness of spring-flowers is thus touched upon by

Herrick:

Flowers on Graves.

Virgins promis'd when I died,
That they would each primrose-tide,
Duly morn and evening come,
And with flowers dress my tomb;
Having promis'd, pay your debts,
Maids, and here strew violets.

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In Wales, where the custom is observed to this day, the white rose is always planted on the grave of an unmarried female; the red rose is appropriated to any one distinguished for benevolence of character. Here, too, the bed, the coffin, and the grave are also strewed with flowers. We remember the rite at Hemel Hempstead, in 1809, where a young boy dying at school, the corpse and the open coffin, as well as the room in which it was placed, were strewed with flowers; and the schoolfellows of the deceased, 100 in number, were admitted to view the mournful

scene.

The decoration of the corpse is mentioned by many poets. Shakspeare, in Romeo and Juliet, makes Friar Lawrence say:

Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary

On this fair corse.

Sir Thomas Overbury concludes his character of "the fair and the happy Milkmaid," with: "Thus lived she, and all her care is that she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet."

The Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, in his Diary, (1648—1679,) says: "Wee poor men steal into our graves with no greater noise than can bee made by a sprigg of rosemary, or a black ribband." Gay, in his Shepherd's Week-the Dirge Pastoral, &c. has this picture of the funeral of a village maiden:

To show their love, the neighbours far and near,
Followed with wistful look the damsel's bier.
Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the Parson walked before.
Upon her grave the rosemary they threw,
The daisy, butter-flower, and endive blue.
After the good man warn'd us from his text,
That none could tell whose turn would be the next;
He said, that Heaven would take her soul, no doubt,
And spoke the hour-glass in her praise-quite out.
To her sweet memory flowery garlands strung,
O'er her now empty seat aloft were hung.
With wicker rods we fenc'd her tomb around,
To warn from man and beast the hallow'd ground;
Lest her new grave the Parson's cattle raze,

For both his horse and cow the churchyard graze.

In a previous passage from the same poem we find this account of the superstitions of the death-bed, about a century and a half since:

When Blouzelind expired, the wether's bell
Before the drooping flock toll'd forth her knell;
The solemn death-watch click'd the hour she dy'd,
And shrilling crickets in the chimney cry'd;
The boding raven on her cottage sate,

And with hoarse croaking warn'd her of her fate;
The lambkin, which her wonted tendance bred,
Dropped on the plains that fatal instant dead;
Swarm'd on a rotten stick the bees I spy'd,;
Which erst I saw when goody Dobson dy'd.

Jeremy Taylor says: "Though I should like a dry death, yet I should not like a dry funeral. Some flowers strewed upon my grave would do well and comely; and a soft shower to turn these flowers into a springing memory, or a fair rehearsal." The pious John Evelyn also says: "We adorn their graves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scripture, to those fading beauties, whose roots being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory."

But, the Garden, with its flowers and evergreens, is altogether hallowed ground. It speaks of a Christian people employed in an occupation, which, above all others, is the parable that conveys the deepest truths to them-which daily reads them silent lessons, if their hearts would hear, of the vanity of earthly pomp, of the beauty of heavenly simplicity, and purity, and lowliness of mind, of contentment and unquestioning faith-which sets before them, in the thorns and thistles, a remembrance of their fallen state-in the cedar, and the olive, and the palm-tree, the promise of a better country-which hourly recalls to their mind the Agony and the Burial of Him who made a garden the scene of both, and who bade us mark and consider such things, how they bud, and how they grow,' giving us in the vine a type of His Church, and in the fig-tree of His Coming." (Quarterly Review.)

In Roman Catholic burial-grounds, the planting and decorating of graves has been a rite from time immemorial; and in the Protestant public cemeteries of England, the same observance is now general; although it was rarely seen in our churchyards.

The yew-tree is indigenous to this country; and when its longevity, its durability, and the perpetual verdure it presents, are taken into consideration, it is not surprising that the yew should have been recognised as an emblem of the immortality of the soul, and employed about our churchyards to deck the graves of the deceased.

Sin and Punishment.

THE EARLIEST SIN.

THE earliest wide-spread sin was violence. That wilfulness of temper those germs of wanton cruelty, which the mother corrects so easily in her infant, were developed in the earliest form of human society into a prevailing plague of wickedness. The few notices which are given of that state of mankind do not present a picture of mere lawlessness, such as we find among the mediaval nations of Europe, but of blind, gross ignorance of themselves and all around them. Atheism is possible now, but Lamech's presumptuous comparison of himself with God is impossible, and the thought of building a tower high enough to escape God's wrath could enter no man's dreams. We sometimes see in very little children a violence of temper which seems hardly human add to such a temper the strength of a full-grown man, and we shall perhaps understand what is meant by the expression that the earth was filled with violence.-Dr. Temple, on the Education of the World.

:

THE GREAT SIN.-DESTRUCTION OF THE OLD WORLD.

Through the transgression of the angels who were tempted by the beauty of the daughters of Eve to unite themselves to a species only a little lower than their own, the corruption of the human race, and the enormity of their crimes before God, were fearfully augmented. A new sin contaminated mankind; a monstrous progeny had birth, powerful for evil beyond ordinary human beings, "mighty men which were of old," and a stain not arising from Adam's transgression, infected the mixed offspring, each bearing about with him not only a polluted human nature, "naturally engendered," but an unclean spirit, supernaturally engendered.

It may be permitted for us to conjecture that it was this offence and stain, beyond all others, which provoked the Almighty to destroy the old world, in order that he might utterly exterminate those semi-angelic families, which else, by gradual intermixture would have polluted the whole race of man.

The mythologists, many of whose fables were certainly based on authentic traditions, appear to have heard through the descendants of Noah, of this forbidden intercourse, these "mighty men."

They seem to allude to it in the story of the giants or demigods, the sons of Cœlus and Terra, of heaven and earth, who rebelled against the Ruler of heaven, sought to invade his realms, and were by him cast down and buried beneath the earth.-Bishop Courtenay on the Future States: Appendix.

SPECIAL PROVIDENCES.

The followers of Mahomet and the inhabitants of Eastern countries are said to believe in the special interference of Providence in each particular case: hence they value but little human life. If a man is in peril, they do not exert themselves to extricate him; but they argue that if God wishes it, the man will surely die. No reasonable man can doubt the truth of the proposition in this form, but in their neglect they assume the whole case; and the question we have to consider is, whether the Creator does, by a special act, will the death of a man, or any other event which takes place on the globe, or has the world been constructed in obedience to laws? Natural science, deduced from the observation of facts, appears to indicate that every thing in this great globe is governed by fixed and immutable laws, and that nothing happens either by chance, or by the special interposition of Providence, apart from these general views.

One of the three letters written by the Duke of Wellington from the field of Waterloo was a brief note, which, having enumerated some who had fallen, ended thus emphatically :-" I have escaped unhurt; the FINGER OF PROVIDENCE WAS ON ME." What the impulse was which dictated these extraordinary words, we leave to the opinion of those who read them.... When the dreadful fight was over, the Duke's feelings, kept so long at the highest tension, gave way; and as he rode among the groans of the wounded, and the reeking carnage, and heard the rout of the vanquished and the shouts of the victors, fainter and fainter through the gloom of night, he wept, and soon after wrote the words which we have quoted from his letter. It is in such trying hours that man feels his frail mortality, instinctively turns to God, and referring his actions to the will of Him who guides and governs all things, with reverence says, "The finger of Providence was on me."

It was on the eve of this bloody contest that the great commander uttered these memorable words: "Next to the calamity of losing a battle is that of gaining a victory."

NEMESIS OR RETRIBUTION.

Nemesis Sacra is the Scripture doctrine of Retribution on Earth, or the doctrine of punishment for sin even in this life. The subject has been elaborately investigated in "A Series of In