might seem like one glad, nor yet in black, so as not to appear to sorrow, but in red;

while another ordered a white dress, to show that he was not ashamed of his works; and

yet a third directed that he should have his shoes and stockings, and a stick, to be ready

for the resurrection! As we know from the gospel, the body was wrapped in "linen

clothes," and the face bound about with a napkin (John 11:44, 20:5,7).

The body having been properly prepared, the funeral rites proceeded, as described in

the gospels. From the account of the funeral procession at Nain, which the Lord of life

arrested (Luke 7:11-15), many interesting details may be learned. First, burying-places

were always outside cities (Matt 8:28, 27:7,52,53; John 11:30,31). Neither watercourses

nor public roads were allowed to pass through them, nor sheep to graze there. We read

of public and private burying-places --the latter chiefly in gardens and caves. It was the

practice to visit the graves (John 11:31) partly to mourn and partly to pray. It was

unlawful to eat or drink, to read, or even to walk irreverently among them. Cremation was

denounced as a purely heathen practice, contrary to the whole spirit of Old Testament

teaching. Secondly, we know that, as at Nain, the body was generally carried open on a

bier, or else in an open coffin, the bearers frequently changing to give an opportunity to

many to take part in a work deemed so meritorious. Graves in fields or in the open were

often marked by memorial columns. Children less than a month old were carried to the

burying by their mothers; those under twelve months were borne on a bed or stretcher.

Lastly, the order in which the procession seems to have wound out of Nain exactly

accords with what we know of the customs of the time and place. It was outside the city

gate that the Lord with His disciples met the sad array. Had it been in Judaea the hired

mourners and musicians would have preceded the bier; in Galilee they followed. First

came the wo men, for, as an ancient Jewish commentary explains--woman, who brought

death into our world, ought to lead the way in the funeral procession. Among them our

Lord readily recognised the widowed mother, whose only treasure was to be hidden

from her for ever. Behind the bier followed, obedient to Jewish law and custom, "much

people of the city." The sight of her sorrow touched the compassion of the Son of Man;

the presence of death called forth the power of the Son of God. To her only He spoke,

what in the form of a question He said to the woman who mourned at His own grave,

ignorant that death had been swallowed up in victory, and what He still speaks to us

from heaven, "Weep not!" He bade not the procession halt, but, as He touched the bier,

they that bore on it the dead body stood still. It was a marvellous sight outside the gate

of Nain. The Rabbi and His disciples should reverently have joined the procession; they

arrested it. One word of power burst inwards the sluices of Hades, and out flowed once

again the tide of life. "He that was dead sat up on his bier, and began to speak" --what

words of wonderment we are not told. It must have been like the sudden wakening,

which leaves not on the consciousness the faintest trace of the dream. Not of that world

but of this would his speech be, though he knew he had been over there, and its

dazzling light made earth's sunshine so dim, that ever afterwards life must have seemed

to him like the sitting up on his bier, and its faces and voices like those of the crowd

which followed him to his burying.

At the grave, on the road to which the procession repeatedly halted, when short

addresses were occasionally delivered, there was a funeral oration. If the grave were in a

public cemetery, at least a foot and a half must intervene between each sleeper. The

caves, or rock-hewn sepulchres, consisted of an ante-chamber in which the bier was

deposited, and an inner or rather lower cave in which the bodies were deposited, in a

recumbent position, in niches. According to the Talmud these abodes of the dead were

usually six feet long, nine feet wide, and ten feet high. Here there were niches for eight

bodies: three on each side of the entrance, and two opposite. Larger sepulchres held

thirteen bodies. The entrance to the sepulchres was guarded by a large stone or by a

door (Matt 27:66; Mark 15:46; John 11:38,39). This structure of the tombs will explain

some of the particulars connected with the burial of our Lord, how the women coming

early to the grave had been astonished in finding the "very great stone" "rolled away

from the door of the sepulchre," and then, when they entered the outer cave, were

affrighted to see what seemed "a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long