_Fried_ means peace, and _Hof_ is the yard or a court of a house, and Friedhof is “the Court of Peace.” This was another beautiful and fitting name. It speaks for itself, and sweetly expresses the feeling of this place. It is peace, all peace here. The battles of life are fought, and there is no strife in this court of peace. The struggles, cares, anxieties, rivalries, jealousies, fears, all that disquiet, harass, fret, and annoy, all, all are buried here. The tramp of a million men in arms awakens no sleeper here. The church itself may be rent and torn and shaken to its base, but its members in this court of peace are not distressed. These hearts that once panted, burned, and bled in the race, the stripes and sorrows of the world, are all at peace now. Blessed is the rest that cannot be broken till the trumpet calls. “That is a beautiful word,” I said; “and does your language furnish any other than these two, Gottesacker and Friedhof.” “Yes, we sometimes speak of it as TODTENGARTEN.” The GARDEN OF THE DEAD! And so they plant flowers among the graves, and along the walks, and make the rural village graveyard an attractive, not a repulsive spot, a garden where friends, members of the same family, are at rest. Jesus was laid in a garden when he was dead. His members slept with him, and will blossom in the Paradise above, where the flowers never fade. Long before Abraham asked a burying-place to put his dead out of sight, the living had their funeral rites and ceremonies. And it is wonderful how widely they differ, in different parts of the world. There is, doubtless, a great difference in the customs of the various cantons of Switzerland, for though the whole twenty-two of them would not make a state larger than New Jersey, they have a _costume_, or dress, peculiar to each, and many of their habits are equally singular. If the weather will permit, it is customary here to defer the funeral until Sunday, even if the person dies on Monday; and thus it often occurs that there are two or three on the same day, and sometimes more. In a population of three thousand, all belonging to one church, and the funerals being held in it, the number is frequently more than one or two at the same hour. The average number of deaths is about ninety in a year. Last Sunday there were three funerals here. The friends of the several deceased met in front of the respective houses where the dead were lying. None but the relatives enter the house. The three funerals were to be attended at the village church, and all at the same hour, as early as nine in the morning. The body is placed in a plain deal coffin, sometimes, but rarely, painted. And the custom of the country forbids the rich to have a coffin more elegant than the poor; the idea being that death abolishes all distinctions, and a plain coffin is good enough to be hid away in the ground. At the hour, the coffin with the dead is brought out of the