HAVING occasion one day to go to that portion of the cemetery where many once known and loved by us on earth, but now sleeping in Jesus, are interred, I was accompanied by a man from the office. As he left it I heard him give instructions that if he were wanted he would be found at “The Singers’ Corner.”
My curiosity was aroused by this, and I asked him for an explanation. “That is what we have long called the part we are now going to,” he said; “for years ago at certain funerals they used to sing hymns, and so the place came to be called ‘The Singers’ Corner.’”
I thought, how strange these hymns must have seemed to some! how out of place songs of thanksgiving must sound in a place of death, like a graveyard! Is there anything more awful in this world than death, and the place of death? Does not the grave close forever over all hope and joy in this world? Is it not the end of the brightest prospect, of the fondest ambition? Truly it is — then why did the mourners sing on these occasions? Was it because they did not love the one whom they laid to rest? Was it because they had not deep sympathy with those who would never see their loved one here again? Oh no! it was because they could say triumphantly, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” And as the bodies, one by one, were laid there of those who had lived and died trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, their friends could indeed say, “But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and they could sing such a hymn as:
“His be the Victor’s name,
Who fought the fight alone;
Triumphant saints no honor claim,
His conquest was their own.”