Catholic C[M[T[Ri[S

THE FIRST CATHOLIC C[M[T[RI[S OF MONTREAL --t!ANO'- A GUIDE TO THE PRESENT CEMETERY • 1\Tontreal E. SENtCAL & FILS, PRINTERS AND PUBHsH~RS 20, sr. VINCENT STREET Tmprimatur, t EOUARDUti CAR., Arch. Marianopolitanus. Entered Recording. to \be Act ot Parnament of C.na~a in lb. ye •• of Our Lord one t..iloueand eigllt hundred and oightY-8~vell, by SnltO' Jto::mou, in tbcloffice of the Minister ot Agriculture. NOTICE Our Guide is an extract from the books of the cemetery, and we have done our best to make it as complete as possible. However, it may be that, notwithstanding our efforts and good will, some mistakes have occurred. Should it be so, the persons made to suffer through such omiElsions, are requested to call at the office of the Fabt·iq ue where we will thankfully receive their remarks and see that justice is done to them in ow· next edition. PREFACE The Church has always kept a watchful eye over the "mortal remains deposited in her cemeteries, as a vigilant mother watches over her slumbering children, and, in order to protect these sacred precincts against desecration, bhe places them under her safe-guard. In her cemeteries, she pro claims, in the face of death, tho immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the bodies. We will ::lee that this creed, which is llrescntly ours, was duly honored in ancient times. -After setting forth this historical fact, we give a short sketch of the first catholic cemeteries of Montreal followed by a table Qf death .. , from the year 1642 to the present day. Our work also comprises the modified rules and regulations of the Fabriquo of Notre Dame, respecting the registration of deaths and the ad ministration of the cemetery, together with a topographical plan of and a Guide to the present cemetery. We have full confidence thai our little book, with such useful information, will be welcome evel'Y where, both in the Illlmble house of the artisan and in the mansion of the millionnr.il'O. vlfAPTER I FUNERALS AND SEPULTURES IN ANCIENT TIMES Respect for the dead, pious attention for their remains, religious pomp in funerals, general ven eration for burial places, are to be found in all ages, in evei·y clime and among all nations, fl'om the remotest times to the present day. Always and everywhere, among the ancient, funerals and sepultures were conAidered as religious acts and were accompanied with ceremonies of public worship, because all nations, says Cicero, " believe that they have certain duties to perform towards the souls of the dead." In Egypt, funerals were accompanied with great pomp and the tombs were magnificent. Often times they were under excavations through a rock and were reached by means of a flight of stairs and a subterraneous passage. Temples were erected around these tombs and this explains why a large number of mummies were found in the necropolis of Memphis. -8- It is well known that the Egyptians embalmed the bodies of the dead, and this custom is a proof that they believed in their resurrection. The em balming process was performed by a priest, and pricsts occupied a prominent l)lace in the funeral l)roccssion. Frescos discovered by archreologists reprcsent priests carrying the mummy to the foot of a small altar. The relatives make the usual offering, and priests, standing at one side of the altar, with shaven heads and covered with leopard skins, recite the prayers of the ritual and offer incense to the deceased, in a perfuming-pan In some wall paintings, priests are seen offering sacred prayers over the body of the dead. According to Herodotus, "tbe mourning and funeral rites of thc Assyrians very much resembled those of the Egyptians." Among the Hindoos, the presence of the priest, Bramin, is requircd at the funeral repast which, far from being a rejoicing, is an austere and seriouB ccremony, in honor of the deceased over whose remains the priest, with uncovered head and bare fcct, has already recited the usual prayers, in a low tone of voice. The sepultme of the dead was considered among the Hebrews as being a divine precept. For this -9- reason, a king of AssYl'ia having slain a large number of Jews and forbidden that they should be buried, Tobias, who had the fear of God more at heart than that of the king, carried the bodics away, hId them in his house and buried them during t.he night. The Talmud determines the form and size of the sepulchl'es, and points out that a small vestibule must be provided, wherein to place the corpse, so that the prayers for the dead may be recited over it. The Gauls, whom everything shows to have had a firm belief in the immortality of the soul, honored their dead with pompous funerals in the forests which were for them real temples. Thel'e, the priests erected altars for the sacrifice, and there also was erected the funeral pile upon which was placed everything that had belonged to the de ceased, even his slaves. The Germans consecrated dark and thick fOl'csts, where they adOl'ed the divinity. Theil' priests presided over all funerals, which were simple and without pomp. Theil' tombs were merely small grass-plots, fol', costly monuments, erected through pride, appeared to them to be a burden over the remains of the dead. They wasted but very little time in tears and lamentations, but -10- devoted much of it to grief and regret, for, they said, tears belong to women and remembrance to men: Feminis lugere honestum est, viris meminiS81l. In Greece and in Rome, funerals, whether by burial or by incineration, were always most solemn. The poems of Homer, Sophocles and Virgil, which are a true picture of the customs of ancient times, stand as an evident proof of this. At almost every page, in the niad, are found the details of famous battles fought to take away from the enemy the bodies of the heroes who have fallen, so that they may be duly honored with sepulture. No more saet'ed duty is imagined and the gods themselves interfere to have it fulfilled, Thus, through the intervention of a god, Achilles decided to give up to Priam the body of his son Hector. Nay, he did more, for he ordered the body to be covered with a rich mantle and a fine tunic, and also to have it washed and perfumed, stretched on a couch and placed on a splendid chariot. Several of Sophocles' tragedies are based upon the fact of funerals and sepulture, In Ajax, this hero, on the point of death, invokes Jupiter and prays him to look after his sepulture and to protect his mortal remains against the insults of his enemies. It was veneration for the dead that -11- inspired Sophocles with writing .JBdipw to Oolone, and the same inspiration brought the Supplicants from the pen of Euripides, and the seven Ohieftains in front of TMbe8 from that of 1Eschylus. The choice of funerals and sepulture as the subject of these tragedies shows how important they were considered among the Greeks. The following fact, which, if not reported by Xenophon and Diodorus of Sicily, would be incredible, proves it in a manner even more evident. Ten Athenian Generals having neglected to bury with due honors the soldiers killed in the battle of the Arginusal, wore all condemned to death, although they had won tho victory. True, by their valor they had saved Athens, but, by their negligence, they had lost thousands of souls whose salvation depended upon sepulture. The salvation of souls was considered of more importance than the safety of the country, among the ancients. Among the Greeks, the burial grounds were the first monuments dedicated to the gods, and tombs were asylums of refuge, as well as the temples. The great legislators, Solon at Athens, and Ly CUI·gUS at Sparta, had regulated the most minute details of funerals, the supervision of which was entrusted to the priests. -12- The same veneration for the dead and respect for sepultures is found among the Romans as among the Greeks. All of them, with the excep tion may be of a few followers of the stoic philoso· phy, were true to this principle and considered sepulture as the most important of all acts, for the Romans had a strong belief in the immortality of the ROUI. They considered places of burial as sacred ground and the Digest has a special title for tho laws protecting sepulture. Funerals had an eminently religious character among the Romans who associated thorewith a creed which, alone, can lead us to understand tho orrors into which paganism had led humanity: paganism had made gods of the doad. The Greeks called them genii, the Romans lares, manes or penates. "Our ancestors, said Cicero, decided that men who had left this world should be classed among the gods." The tombs were the temples of these divinities. "When the body had been con· sumed on the funeral pile, the ashes were gathered in urns, which, in their turn, were placed in colum barias or niches resembling pigeon's nests. These niches wore made in the walls of the sepulchral chamber. The f011"r sides were closed and they sometimes attained a considerable height. Over -13- this mortuary chamber wel'e rich apartments, for the use of the family,when they gathered together to perform certain religious ceremonies over the remains of their relatives." In Rome, funerals were accompanied with all the pomp of religion.

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