I hence took occasion to speak of the nature and value of a soul, and to ask them where they expected their souls to go when they departed hence and were no more seen on earth.
I told them who was "the resurrection and the life," and who alone could take away the sting of death.

I used to remind them that the hour was "coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." I often availed myself of these opportunities to call to their recollection the more recent deaths of their own relatives that lay buried so near us.

Some had lost a parent, others a brother or sister; some perhaps had lost all these, and were committed to the mercy of their neighbours as fatherless or motherless orphans.

Such circumstances were occasionally useful to excite tender emotions, favourable to serious impressions.
Sometimes I sent the children to the various stones which stood at the head of the graves, and bid them learn the epitaphs inscribed upon them.
I took pleasure in seeing the little ones thus dispersed in the churchyard, each committing to memory a few verses written in commemoration of the departed.

They would soon accomplish the desired object, and eagerly return to me ambitious to repeat their task.
Thus my churchyard became a book of instruction, and every grave-stone a leaf of edification for my young disciples.
The church itself stood in the midst of the ground.