3-071-113 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

God's Acre: a sketch in a Saxon churchyard, 1881. 'The "Gottes-Acker." "That ancient Saxon phrase which calls the burial-ground 'God's Acre,' " is commended by Longfellow, in one of his touching little poetic meditations, which have perhaps comforted many a mourner's heart with a serene and hopeful Christian view of the great mystery of death. It is from Germany that we have learnt this significant name for the churchyard or cemetery; and our Illustration of a pathetic scene, where the bereaved mother, with her surviving children, has come to lay garlands of loving remembrance upon the tomb of a child, "not lost, but gone before," was drawn from a German example. But England and America, and every country in the world, may claim a share in this expression of a sentiment common to our earthly mortality, but especially sanctioned by the faith of Christendom: God's Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts Comfort to those who in the grave have sown The seed that they had garnered in their hearts, Their bread of life - alas, no more their own! 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!'. Signed 'A Laby' - A Lady? From "Illustrated London News", 1881.