Year: 1860

Mourning for the Dead.


Inc proprlety of adopting sombre apparel
when a near and dear relative or friend dies


IS theme upon which much has been said and
written. The advocates of the custom have
always been the great majority, and conse.
fquentiy anything which may be said in oppo-
sltioh TO such course, is interesting if only
Ior the novelty OF the argument advanced.
Recently the Rev. DIR. Butler of Trinity
Church, Washington, addressed his congrega-
tloh upon this subject, urging that, if our re-
hglon IS joyful, this Objectionable uniform of
woe ought TO be discarded. The reverend
gentleman said =


= Our life is sorrowtul enough in our SORROWS
as they pass, without bringing them and hold.
ing them up in the world and erecting conspi-
cuouS monuments over them in the lives of
others to perpetuate them after they are dead
and buried. 1t is Christian duty to trouble
others as little as we can with our grlets We
may be sure the world has enough for its own
discipline. And it is from this view | object
to a custom which to my mind is never good,
but which iii the excess to which it is carried
seems to me to be an absolute wrong to socie.
ty, throwing over it an element of gloom
which no persons, and Christians least of all,
have right to cast into this already too
Swallowed light. | fear that | shall offend the
sacred sentiment and feeling of many who
cherish it as a Christian ceremony when an.
nounce my most decided objection to the prac.
tlce OF putting on mourning for the dead
You will permit me, with all respect to the
sentiments of others, to utter my very long
and matured convictions upon it. Its evils
seem to me to be manifold. 1t looks to me
like Uniform of organized rebellion against
the providence of God 1t sheds gloom over
the streets, through the churches, and in the
houses. 1t creates an impression in the world
OF the absence OF comfort and consolation. 1t
helps to perpetuate sorrow, when the Christian
duty is to cultivate peace and joy. Children
or Christian friends die and they go to heaven
and we very properly lay them amid fragrant
flowers, with white lilies upon their breasts
All around them is the light of Christian hope
and consolation, and then we come in dark
cloud shedding night over the scene. This is
not Christian but heather custom. The
early Christians forbid cries of agonies, the
rendlng of garments, and the black emblems
of despair which the heather practiced and
adopted and deposited their dead with sorrow
ing gratitude; for they sorrowed not with.
out hope. Indeed, evidence is not wanting to
prove that they adopted first the opposite Gus
tom to that of mourning that they wore white
and bright colors, emblematical of their Chris
tian joy, when the dead was buried out of
their sight. l have sometimes thought wheth.
er the habit, which will be in the memory of
some OF you, OF wearing white scarfs at funer-
ais, was not derived from this primitive Gus.
tom. 1t is not, think Christian sentiment
which prompts this gloomy habiment 1t
converts women, and, saddest of all, little chill
dren, into walking emblems of despair.


Black! Why 1T is the symbol of sin, of woe
OF wrath, and of despair, not OF the COM ort
and the gladdened sorrow of the Christian. 1t
is, moreover, too often a mere fashion. And
then, to see it elaborately interwoven, coquet-
ish in its adjustments, going to places of
amusement, covering the gay and giddy, as it
has sort OF fantastic masquerade appearance,
and seems lncongruous to the gloom | re-
spect the sentiment which leads those who are
bereaved to put away gay cOlors, and wear
those which are gl0omier. But let not the
fancled respect for the dead, or fear that one
may not seem to mourn enough lead us into
the most mistaken conviction that sorrow is a
duty. When it is a duty, let grace convert it
into peaceful joy. Let it not Head us into
the egotism of obtrudng our sorrow into the
world, and wrong against Christianity by
making 1t wear livery of despair, and wrong
to the world by being objects of gloomness,
when our present peace should be a perpetual
testimony to the high Joys, and the sufficient
consolation to a Christian faith Black
What is it 1t is that into which the light
cannot come 1t is the absence of light


why should 1t drape the children of light
and of hope? Why should it be used in the
case of those, the memory of whose departure
aud peaceful rest is sacrsd joy l may run
counter to your feelings and prejudices upon
this subject You may say it corresponds to
your own feelings to wear this gloomy materi-
al; but is it that feeling which corresponds to
the credit of God, and to the lnercies of re-
deeming love? Ii the custom is in harmony
with just conception, then have our green,
sweet cemeteries, SO full of joyful reflection,
whose embems are all in conflict with it, al
tered. Our graves should be placed in rugged
places, and have no trees but the cyprus and
the nightshade no monuments but those OF
black marble. If our religion is joyful, it does
seem to me that this Objectionable uniform of
woe would be soon discarded