The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-10-24
Why Wear Mourning?

EDITOR MANNING TIMEs-You ask many
other questions pertinent thereto, stating
that it is an idle custom, expressing the
orinion that 1t should be abolished,
and the hope that some one will discuss the
sabjecs. having your kind permission to
do 50 in the columns of your paper, Inow Of
fer some reflections; promising that have
| long since been strongly in favor Of reduc-
ing the hsbiliments of mourning to o SIM
ple badge, and the burial case and clothing,
strictly to what is necessary to decency and
security.
The subject is naturally of three-told
character: first, mourning or SORROW for the
loss occasioned by death; second. express
ins that sorrow by clothing our persons in
garments Of specified ooior; and, third,
respect to the bodies of the dead By cloth
| ing and encssing them in decent manner.
The human heart has ever been possessed
of the emotions of love and SORROW, and it
is as natural to express the one as the other.
Heashens, Hebrews, and Christians have
mourned for their dead from the earliest
ages. Nay more the dumb brutes were per-
mittsd Sy their Creator to share these emo
tons with the nobler creature man. and the
fall Of Adam did not suffice to drive them
wholly from their breasts.
Il was not displeasing to God that the Is
raelites mourned at the death of Jacob, and
the Saviour in his humanity wept with the
veepins sisters Of the dead Lazarus. In
our dsy excessive grief for the dead is
sometimes INDUCED in, but the tendency is
in the direction Of Indifference, near rela-
tives Of the dead making little or no break
in their social festivities
Different coiors have been adopted in diff
ferent countries to express sorrow for de-
parted friends. In Europe the color is
black, signifying privation of life, and
hence Of light. In China, white as denot-
ing purity. In Turkey blue or violet. blue
expressing the happiness which it is hoped
the deceased enjoys, and violet sorrow on
the ole side and hope on the other. In
Eeypt yellow because death is the end, and
flowers and leaves become yellow when
thev Jade and fall. In Ethiopia. brown,
because it denotes the earth whittier the
dead return.
Mourning, OF sor7ow for loss by death,
and the expression of that SORROW in sore
form or other, is not merely 3 custom, but
the expression Of noble God-lAe Sentl;
nent
Yielding to excessive grief IS wrong. Al
flowing the manifestation Of it to be govern
ed, BY mere fashion, Or respect for Ae opin-
S1o1s of the world is wrong. Wearing the
habiGments of mourning merely for show IS
hypocritical. Purchasing costly garments
! and buriai cases is useless eNtravagalce.
and when BY doing 90 the survivors ar5
straitened for food ana clothing, or the
creditors are deprived OF their just dues, It
is simply dishonest As It appears to me,
the tendency now is 10 Indifference to loss
of friends By death, and increase OF expense
in makinga show Of sorrow which IS not
felt.
A little more than fifty years ago one Of
the wealthiest men in Clarendon county
died, and, one of his neighbors was paid five
dollars for making his coffin, and have no
doubt his family mourned in heart more
than many nowadays who almost starvs
themselves to bury their dea I.
The subject is one that sto'sld have tAs