American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1879-11-08
THE HABILIMENTS OF GRIEF
Are they Consistent with n True Christiai,
Belief'7-The Vulgar Frippery of Fashion
able Mourning.

For, if We die, We shall live again. "
says the clear voice of the Christian
faith, over and over, in varying formu-
larics. Yet, strangely enough, it Is the
Christian nations which invest death
with the deepest gloom, and pay the
most woful rites to their departed
In the South-sea Islands the gentle
heather wear mourning robes of black
and white, striped, to denote a mingled
sorrow and hope. In Ethiopia ii gray
ish- brown is chosen, as symbolic of the
earth to which the dust returns Persia
DEGREES pale brown, the color of with
cred leaves. In Syria, Cappadocia, Ar
menia, and Turkey sky blue expresses
the assured hope that the departed have
returned to the skies. The Romans of
the Republic wore mourning of dark
blue. the emblem of their sober cheer
fulness. In China the choice of white
signifies the cherishing of "white-
handed hope" The ladies of ancient
Rome and of Sparta followed the same
custom. Spain maintained it up to the
sixteenth century In Egypt and in Bur-
NAH, yellow, the hue of the falling leaf,
is thought the fittest symbol of death,
conveying also, as it does. the hint of
exaltation. Only Europe and our own
country surround their dead with the
shroud the living in an impenetrable
hopelessness of black.
The first general protest against this
melancholy custom was that made by
the Quakers. This spiritual people,
feeling that death could be no awful
calamity, since equally with birth it was
the calm decree of God, and, indeed,
was itself but another and less mysteri-
Gus miracle of birth, declined to wear
the outward uniform of sentiment
they could not share. Now and then
some individual of the older sects, hold
ing a like belief, made like acknowl-
edgment by non-conformity to the pre-
vailing custom. But it is only within Il
very few years that there has been
any general discussion of the question.
Quite lately, however, two distin-
guished doctors of divinity, of widely
differing creeds, have made a solemn
protest from their pulpits against the
ordinary mourning of the community.
They say that our gloom accuses our
faith. They affirm that Christians must
maintain death to be as good as life, as
natural as birth. They hold that there
is no moment of our existence when we
should feel Gods sunshine to be unweI-
come, or the radiant joyousncss of His
wonderful world alien and undesired.
Our parting with our beloved, they
aver, should be cheerful and expectant,
and all that grim machinery of death
which frightens children and chills the
bravest of us to the heart, should be
abolished.
Why should it not be, says one of
them, that bit of black ribbon may be
made to indicate our bereavement as
well as the suffocating Grape and serge
in which we wrap ourselves? A scarf
of black upon the bell-pull tells the tale
of loss to the passer-by, and no man
covers his whole house front with funer-
| al drapery. Our present mourning
dress is costly, uncomfortable, and in
our climate unwholesome. The fact
that the rich wear it imposes it upon
| the poor, who can not afford, it, and
adds to their grief the harassing fear of
debt or new necessity of pinching.
He believes that the hopes of those
who are gone before should be SYM
| boliZed in our customs rather than the
dependence of those who linger behind.
| Therefore he would fill the house with
sunshine, suffer the dear dead to rest in
the familiar brightness as long as they
should remain to their beloved, let flow
ers abound, and fill the air with the ac-
customed tones, not hushed lest they
profane the beautiful, sweet repose.
And he would bid the mourners wear
cheerful garments in token of the tri-
umph of the glorified ones, with what
ever badge of bereavement might seem
to them fittest to indicate their own
sorrow.
1t seems to us that this question of
mourning raiment must long remain one
for individual judgment to decide. But
it marks IL great gain in liberation and
in personal independence that it has
reached that final tribunal. Undoubt-
edly the universal use of black, which
society once exacted, did lay a heavy
burden on the unable, which they may
now refuse if they choose. There are
those who derive Il certain solace from
the harmony of their somber robes with
their darkened lives. And there are cir
cumstances wherein this profound show
of grief is doubtless a protection.
But there is at least one habit which
calls for censure, and that is the CHASTITY
anomaly of wearing these garments of
heaviness as if they were festal raiment.
If weeds mean any thing, they mean a
grief SO deep, an experience SO absorb
ing, as to have shut out all the usual
concerns of life, and encompassed the
mourner in u solitude of desolation, of
which the gloomy garb and the shroud
ing veil are the inadequate emblems.
Good taste must demand, therefore, that
first mourning should be made with Sc
verest simplicity-plain, inexpensive,
and inconspicuous. Afterward, as time
softens the first agony of separation, and
worldly interests again assert them
selves, it is fitting that modification of
attire should indicate this change of
feeling.
But mourning is essentially a votive