[12] the earth, have rarely been planted about our grave yards; the enclosures are generally inadequate and neglected, the graves indecently crowded together, and often, after a few years, disturbed; and the whole appearance as little calculated as possible to invite the visits of the seriously disposed, to tranquilize the feelings of surviving friends, and to gratify that disposition which would lead us to pay respect to their ashes.Nor has it hitherto been in the power even of those, who might be able and willing to do it, to remedy these evils, as far as they are themselves concerned. Great objections exist to a place of sepulture in a private field; particularly this, that in a few years, it is likely to pass into the hands of those who will take no interest in preserving its sacred deposit from the plough. The mother of Washington lies buried in a field, the property of a person not related to her family, and in a spot which cannot now be identified. In the public grave yard it is not always in the power of an individual, to appropriate to a single place of burial, space enough for the purposes of decent and respectful ornament.
The proposed establishment seems to furnish every facility for gratifying the desire, which must rank among the purest and strongest of the human heart; and which would have been much more frequently indicated, but for the very serious, and sometimes insuperable obstacles of which we have spoken. Here it will be in the power of every one, who may wish it, at an expense considerably less than that of a common tomb or a vault beneath a church, to deposit the mortal remains of his friends; and to provide a place of burial
