“Two respectable correspondents,” observes a writer, in one of the early volumes of the Monthly Magazine, have very properly censured and exposed the indecency, and even danger, of burying in churches and in towns. In addition to their remarks and anecdotes, allow me a place, if you can, for an extract from a very scarce discourse, by that learned and eminently pious prelate, Joseph Hall, preached at Exeter, August the 24th, 1637, on the consecration of a new burial place. The text, which is very applicable, and admirably elucidated, is Genesis, the 23rd chapter, 19th and 20th verses.--“And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field Machpelah, before Mamre, the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure to Abraham for a possession of a burying place by the sons of Heth.” * * * * * After making several pertinent observations on the subject, the excellent Bishop says: “Hitherto that there must be a meet place, a place fixed and designed for the burial of the dead; now let us a little look into the choice of the place; it was a field, and a cave in that field; a field not _sub-tecto_, but _sub-dio_; a field before Mamre, a city that took its name from the owner, Abraham’s assistant in his war; before it, not in it; and indeed both these are fit and exemplary: it was the ancientest and best way that sepultures should be without the gates of the city; hence you find that our Saviour met the bier of the widow’s son as he was carried out of the gates of Nain to his burial; and hence of old was wont to be that proclamation of the Roman funerals, _allus cefertur feras_. And we find that Joseph of Arimathea, had his private burial place in his garden without the City, (for it was near to Calvary) and so was Lazarus, his sepulchre without Bethany. Our Saviour staid in the field, till the sisters came forth to him, and the neighbours came forth after them: so they went together to the sepulchre. And certainly much might be said to this purpose for the convenience of our funerals, without respect of those Jewish grounds, who held a kind of impurity in the corpses of the dead; but that which might be said, is rather out of matter of wholesomness and civil considerations, than out of the grounds of theology. In time, this rite of burial, did so creep within the walls, that it insinuated itself into churches, yea, into the Holy of Holies,--Choirs, and chancels, near unto the holy table, God’s evangelical altar; but I must tell you, this custom hath found entertainment only in the Western churches, that is, those that were of correspondence with the Roman; for the Greek church allows no such practice, and the Roman at first admitted it very sparingly, so as (_elim episcopi, et alii principes sépelie bantur in ecclesia_) none but princes and bishops (as Martinus Vivaldus) were of old interred in churches; afterwards the privileges grew larger,