“It is also called Friedhof.”
Fried means peace, and Hof is the yard or a court of a house, and Friedhof is “the Court of Peace.” This was another beautiful and fitting name. It speaks for itself, and sweetly expresses the feeling of this place. It is peace, all peace here. The battles of life are fought, and there is no strife in this court of peace. The struggles, cares, anxieties, rivalries, jealousies, fears, all that disquiet, harass, fret, and annoy, all, all are buried here. The tramp of a million men in arms awakens no sleeper here. The church itself may be rent and torn and shaken to its base, but its members in this court of peace are not distressed. These hearts that once panted, burned, and bled in the race, the stripes and sorrows of the world, are all at peace now. Blessed is the rest that cannot be broken till the trumpet calls.
“That is a beautiful word,” I said; “and does your language furnish any other than these two, Gottesacker and Friedhof.”
“Yes, we sometimes speak of it as Todtengarten.”
The Garden of the Dead! And so they plant flowers among the graves, and along the walks, and make the rural village graveyard an attractive, not a repulsive spot, a garden where friends, members of the same family, are at rest. Jesus was laid in a garden when he was dead. His members slept with him, and will blossom in the Paradise above, where the flowers never fade.
Long before Abraham asked a burying-place to put his dead out of sight, the living had their funeral rites and ceremonies. And it is wonderful how widely they differ, in different parts of the world. There is, doubtless, a great difference in the customs of the various cantons of Switzerland, for though the whole twenty-two of them would not make a state larger than New Jersey, they have a costume, or dress, peculiar to each, and many of their habits are equally singular. If the weather will permit, it is customary here to defer the funeral until Sunday, even if the person dies on Monday; and thus it often occurs that there are two or three on the same day, and sometimes more. In a population of three thousand, all belonging to one church, and the funerals being held in it, the number is frequently more than one or two at the same hour. The average number of deaths is about ninety in a year. Last Sunday there were three funerals here. The friends of the several deceased met in front of the respective houses where the dead were lying. None but the relatives enter the house. The three funerals were to be attended at the village church, and all at the same hour, as early as nine in the morning. The body is placed in a plain deal coffin, sometimes, but rarely, painted. And the custom of the country forbids the rich to have a coffin more elegant than the poor; the idea being that death abolishes all distinctions, and a plain coffin is good enough to be hid away in the ground. At the hour, the coffin with the dead is brought out of the house, and on a bier is borne on the shoulders of the nearest male relatives or friends. One of these funerals was that of an aged mother. She left eight sons and two daughters; six of the sons were grown men, and they bore their mother on their shoulders to the grave. The three processions met near the church, and the three coffins were then borne in the order of the ages of the deceased, to the church, but not into it. The body is never taken into the church. But when the relatives and friends have entered, the body is carried by the bearers immediately into the Gottesacker, God’s Acre, the graveyard, which usually adjoins the church. It is there buried, while none are present except those who do the work. I stood at a little distance while this melancholy service was performed. It was not pleasing to me that the dead should be thus put away unwept. And another custom was equally unpleasant to me. The graves are arranged in regular order, without any distinction of families, and as each person in the place dies, he is buried in the grave next to the one who was buried before him. It may have been a neighbor with whom he was at enmity, but now in death they sleep side by side, and know it not. Families are separated by the grave, as well as by death, and no two of them, unless they die together, may be laid together in the grave. This is surprising when we notice the remarkable attention they bestow on the Garden of the Dead. For when the dead are buried, the friends come, day after day, and adorn the grave with flowers, and surround it with a border of green, and water it with their tears of love.
While the body is thus cared for by the bearers, the funeral service is proceeding in the church. This is similar to the service in our own country, the prayers and selections of Scripture being read, and a sermon preached, the same discourse answering, of course, for all who are buried on the same day. At the funeral, all the men in attendance wear a black mantle, of bombazine or serge, which they may get, for a trifle, of the undertaker, who keeps them for hire. Persons of property have them of their own, to wear only on funeral occasions, but the most of the people hire them when wanted, and thus every man at the funeral appears as a mourner. All the women dress in black when attending a funeral, and they never go to church in any other than a black dress. This is a very peculiar custom, but is invariably followed by all the people of this country. Not a light-colored dress appears in the great congregation on the Sabbath-day, or at a funeral.
If I have not already spoken to you of the cultivation, refinement, and manners of the intelligent, wealthy, and “upper” classes of the people, I say that a very erroneous and unjust opinion has been formed on this point, by travellers whose observations have been confined to hotels and highways, their only intercourse with men who make it their business to get as much as possible out of all who fall into their hands. It has been my pleasure this summer to meet in social life among the Swiss some of the pleasantest, most intelligent, and agreeable women and men that will be found in any country. Their manners and minds, as well as their persons, would grace any assembly, and they appeared to be only the fitting representatives of the best circles of society in this remarkable land. They admire their own country. Patriotism burns as brightly among these mountains as on our own shores. And when it was mentioned that I might write a book on Switzerland, a beautiful and accomplished lady bade me be careful, or she would make another and set me right if I failed to do justice to her beloved Switzerland. I could only say to her, in reply, that the threat was a temptation to error. But any one who becomes familiar with the inner life of this people, will find as much to admire and esteem as in any European country.
