The North Side of a Church

THE NORTH SIDE OF A CHURCH. [a]

STRONG prejudice has long existed against burying on, the northern side of the church. In many churchyards the southern side will be found full of graves, with scarcely any on the northern side.

I have sought to discover, if possible, the origin of this prejudice, but I have not been able to trace it to any well-defined feeling. I have been answered, "Oh, we like to bury a corpse where the sun will shine on the grave ;" and, "The northern graveyard is in the shadow, and cold ;" but beyond this I have not advanced.

We may infer that this desire to place the remains of our friends in earth on which the sun shines, is born of that love which, forgetting mortality, lives on the pleasant 'memories of the past, hoping for that meeting beyond the grave which shall know no shadow. The act of planting flowers, of nurturing an evergreen tree, of hanging "eternals" on the tomb, is only another form of the same sacred feeling.

[a] See Appendix DD.