"Their most common form, as you know, is a simple shed composed of a roof with two gable ends, covered either with tiles or thatch, and supported on strong timbers well braced together. But they are frequently built of stone, and in the manner of their construction they greatly vary. At Burnsall there is a curious arrangement for opening and closing the gate. The stone pier on the north side has a well-hole, in which the weight that closes the gate works up and down. An upright swivel post or 'heart-tree,' (as the people there call it,) stands in the centre, and through this pass the three rails of the gate; an iron bent lever is fixed to the top of this post, which is connected by a chain and guide-pulley to the weight, so that when any one passes through, both ends of the gate open in opposite directions. The Gate at Rostherne churchyard, in Cheshire, is on a similar plan. At Berry-harbour is a Lich-Gate in the form of a cross. At only one place, I believe, – Troutbeck, in Westmoreland, – are there to be found three stone Lich-Gates in one churchyard. Some of these gates have chambers over them, as at Bray⁸, in Berkshire, and Barking⁹, in Essex. At Tawstock there is a small room on either side of the gate, having seats on three sides and a table in the centre. It seems that in this, as in some other cases, provision is made either for the distribution of alms, or for the rest and refreshment of funeral attendants. It was once a common custom at funerals in some parts, especially in Scotland¹⁰, to hold a feast at the Church-gate and these feasts sometimes led to great excesses: happily they are now discontinued, but the custom may help to point out the purpose for which these Lich-Gate rooms were sometimes erected. In Cornwall it is not customary to bear the corpse on the shoulders, but to carry the coffin, under-handed, by white cloths passed beneath and through the handles¹¹ and this partly explains the peculiar arrangement for resting the corpse at the entrance to the churchyard, common, even now, in that county, and which is called the Lich-Stone. The Lich-Stone is often found without any building attached to it, and frequently without even a gate. The Stone is either oblong with the ends of equal width, or it is the shape of the ancient coffins, narrower at one end than the other, but without any bend at the shoulder. It is placed in the centre, having stone seats on either side, on which the bearers rest whilst the coffin remains on the Lich-Stone. When there is no gate, the churchyard is protected from the intrusion of cattle by this simple contrivance: – long pieces of moor-stone, or granite, are laid across, with a space of about three inches between each, and being rounded on the top any animal has the greatest difficulty in walking over them, indeed a quadruped seldom attempts to cross them.

"Lich-Stones are, – though very rarely, – to be found at a distance from the churchyard; in this case, doubtless, they are intended as rests for the coffin on its way to burial.

"At Lustleigh, in Devonshire, is an octagonal Lich-Stone called Bishop's Stone, having engraved upon it the arms of Bishop Cotton¹². It seems not unlikely that the several beautiful crosses erected by King Edward I. at the different stages where the corpse of his queen, Eleanor¹³, rested on its way from Herdeby in Lincolnshire to Westminster, were built over the Lich-Stone on which her coffin was placed. And now, my kind listeners, I think I have told you all I know about Lich-Stones."

"These simple memorials of Church architecture are very touching," replied Mr. Acres, as he rose to depart; "and the Lich-Stone deserves a record before modern habits and improvements sweep them away. They have a direct meaning, and surely might be more generally adopted in connexion with the Lich-Gate, now gradually re-appearing in many of our rural parishes, as the fitting entrance to the churchyard."

CHAPTER III
GRAVE-STONES

"When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones."

1 Kings xiii. 31

 
"I've seen
The labourer returning from his toil,
Here stay his steps, and call the children round,
And slowly spell the rudely sculptured rhymes,
And in his rustic manner, moralize.
We mark'd with what a silent awe he'd spoken,
With head uncover'd, his respectful manner,
And all the honours which he paid the grave."
 

H. Kirke White.

 
"I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
 
 
"Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
 
 
"With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and acre of our God:
This is the place where human harvests grow."
 

Longfellow.

"And so, Matthew, the old sexton's little daughter is to be buried to-day. What a calm peaceful day it is for her funeral! The day itself seems to have put on the same quiet happy smile that Lizzie Daniels always carried about with her, before she had that painful lingering sickness, which she bore with a meekness and patience I hardly ever saw equalled. And then it is Easter Day too, the very day one would choose for the burial of a good Christian child. All our services to-day will tell us that this little maid, and all those who lie around us here so still beneath their green mounds, are not dead but sleeping, and as our Saviour rose from the grave on Easter Day, so will they all awake and rise up again when God shall call them. I see the little grave is dug under the old yew-tree, near to that of your own dear ones. Lizzie was a great favourite of yours, was she not, Matthew?"

"Ah, she was the brightest little star in my sky, I can tell you, sir; and I shall miss her sadly. She brought me my dinner, every day for near two years, up to the old thorn there, and then she would sit down on the grass before me, and read from her Prayer Book some of the Psalms for the day; and when she had done, and I had kissed and thanked her, she used to go trotting home again, with, I believe, the brightest little face and the lightest little heart in England. Well, sir, it's sorry work, you know, for a man to dig the grave for his own child, and so I asked John Daniels to let me dig Lizzie's grave: but it has been indeed hard work for me, for I think I've shed more tears in that grave than I ever shed out of it. But the grave is all ready now, and little Lizzie will soon be there; and then, sir, I should like to put up a stone, for I shall often come here to think about the dear child. Poor little Lizzie! she seemed like a sort of good angel to me, – children do seem like that sometimes, don't they, sir? Perhaps, Mr. Ambrose, you would be so good as to tell Robert Atkinson what sort of stone you would like him to put up."

"Certainly I will; and I think nothing would be so suitable as a simple little stone cross, with Lizzie's name on the base of it. And as she is to be buried on Easter Day, I should like to add the words, 'In Christ shall all be made alive.'"

"Thank you, sir; that will do very nicely. I'm only thinking, may be, that wicked boy of Mr. Dole's, at the shop, will come some night and break the cross, as he did the one Mr. Hunter put up over his little boy. But I think that was more the sin of the father than of the son, for I'm told the old gentleman's very angry with you, sir, 'cause he couldn't put what he call's a 'handsome monument' over his father's grave; and he says, too, he's going to law about it."

"Ah, he'll be wiser not to do that, Matthew. The churchyard is the parson's freehold, and he has the power to prevent the erection of any stone there of which he disapproves; and I, for one, don't mean to give up this power. 'Tis true that every one of my parishioners has a right to be buried in this churchyard, nor could I refuse this if I would; but then, if I am to protect this right of my parishioners, as it is my duty to do, and to preserve my churchyard from disfigurement and desecration, I must take care that the ground is not occupied by such great ugly monuments as Mr. Dole wishes to build¹⁴. Why I hear he bought that large urn¹⁵ which was taken down from Mr. Acres' park gates, to put on the top of the tomb. And then I suppose he would like to have the sides covered with skulls and crossbones, and shovels and mattocks, and fat crying cherubs, besides the usual heathen devices, such as inverted torches and spent hour-glasses; all which fitly enough mark an infidel's burial-place, but not a Christian's. For you see, my friend, that none of these things represent any Christian truth; the best are but emblems of mortality; some are the symbols of oblivion and despair, and others but mimic a heathen custom long gone by. The stones of the churchyard ought themselves to tell the sanctity of the place, and that it is a Christian's rest¹⁶. The letters we carve on them will hardly be read by our children's children. The lines on that stone there tell no more than is true of all the Epitaphs around us:

 
'The record some fond hand hath traced,
To mark thy burial spot,
The lichen will have soon effaced,
To write thy doom – Forgot.'
 

But even then, if the symbol of our redemption is there, 'the very stones will cry out,' and though time-worn and moss-grown, will declare that it is a Christian's burial-place. If, then, as Christian men and women 'we sorrow not as others without hope,' let us not cover our monuments with every symbol of despair, or with heathen devices, but as we are not ashamed of the doctrine, so neither let us be ashamed of the symbol of the cross of Christ. Besides, if we wish to preserve our graves from desecration, this form of stone is the most likely to do so; for in spite of outrages like young Dole's, which have been sometimes committed, we continually find that such memorials have been respected and preserved when others have been removed and employed for common uses. Why, Matthew, I've seen hundreds of grave-stones converted into fire-hearths, door-steps, pavements, and such like, but I never saw a monument on which was graven the Christian symbol so desecrated; and I believe such a thing has hardly ever been seen by any one."

"Well, Mr. Ambrose, I should like there to be no doubt about little Lizzie's being a Christian's grave. I was thinking, too, to have a neat iron railing round the stone, sir."

"I would advise you not to have it, Matthew; for the grave will be prettier without it. Besides, it gives an idea of separateness, which one does not like in a place where all distinctions are done away with; and, moreover, the iron would soon rust, and then the railing would become very untidy."

"Yes, to be sure it would; I was forgetting that I shan't be here to keep it nicely painted: – but see, sir, here come the children from the village with their Easter flowers. I dare say little Mary Acres will give me some for Lizzie's grave."

"Ah, I like that good old custom of placing flowers and wreaths on Christian graves at Easter, and other special seasons¹⁷. It is the simple way in which these little ones both show their respect for departed friends, and express their belief in the resurrection of the dead. I would say of it, as Wordsworth wrote of the Funeral Chant: —

 
'Many precious rites
And customs of our rural ancestry
Are gone, or stealing from us; this, I hope,
Will last for ever.'
 

But you remember the time, Matthew, when there were very different scenes from this, at Easter, in St. Catherine's churchyard. If I mistake not, you will recollect when the Easter fair used to be kept here."

"That I do, sir, too well. There was always a Sunday fight in the churchyard, and the people used to come from Walesborough and for miles round to see it. It's just forty years ago to-day poor Bill Thirlsby was killed in a fight, as it might be, just where I'm now standing¹⁸. But, thank God, that day's gone by."

"And, I trust, never to come back again. But have you heard, Matthew, that some great enemies of the Church are trying to spoil the peace and sacredness of our churchyards in another way? They want to bring in all kinds of preachers to perform all sorts of funeral services in them; and if they gain their ends, our long-hallowed churchyards, where as yet there has only been heard the solemn beautiful Burial Service of our own Church, may be desecrated by the clamour of ignorant fanaticism, the continual janglings of religious discord, or perhaps, the open blasphemy of godless men."

"What! then I suppose we should have first a service from Master Scoff, the bill-sticker and Mormon preacher, and next from Master Scole, the Baptist preacher, then from Father La Trappe, the Roman Catholic minister, and then, perhaps, sir, it might be your turn. Why, sir, 'twould be almost like going back to the Easter fair."

"Well, my friend, in one respect it would be worse; for it would be discord all the year round. But I trust God will frustrate these wicked designs of our Church's foes. Long, long may it be ere the sanctity of our churchyards is thus invaded."

"Amen, say I to that, sir, with all my heart."

"And, thanks be to God, Matthew, that Amen of yours is now re-echoing loudly throughout the length and breadth of England."