Year: 1879

"For. if ye die, ye shall live again"
says the clear voice of the Christian faith,
over and over, in varying formularies.
Yet, strangely enough, it is the Christian
nations which invest death with the deep
est gloom, and pay the most woful rites to
the departed.


In the South Sea Islands the gentle
heather wear mourning robes of black
and white, striped, to denote mingled
sorrow and hope. In Ethiopia a grayish
brown is chosen, as symbolic of the earth
to which the dust returns. Persia DEGREES
pale brown, the color of withered leaves.
In Syria, Cappadocia, Armenia and Tur-
key sky blue expresses the assured hope
that the departed have returned to TIE
skies. The Romans of the republic wore
mourning of dark blue, the emblem of
their sober cheerfulness. 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
Burmah, yellow, the hue of the falling
leaf is thought the fittest symbol of death,
conveying also, as it does, the hint of ex-
ultation. Only Europe and our own coun-
try surround their dead with the emblems
of comfortless despair, and 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 mysterious miracle of
birth, declined to wear the outward uni
form of sentiment they could not share
Now and then some individual of the
older sects, holding a like belief, make Il
like acknowledgment by non conformity
to the prevailing custom. But it is only
within very few years that there has
been any very general discussion Of the
question.


Quite lately however, two distinguished
doctors of divinity, of widely differing
creeds, have made solemn protest from
their pulpits against the ordinary mourn
ing of the community. They say that
our gloom accuses our faith. They affirm
that Christians must maintain death to be
as good as life, rs natural as birth. They
hold that there is no moment Of our exist
ence when we should feel Gods sunshine
to be unwelcome, or the radiant joyous
ness of His wonderful world alien anC
undesired. Our parting with our beloved
they aver, should be cheerful and expect
ant, and all that grim machinery of death
which frightens children, and chills the
bravest of us to the heart, should bt
abolished.


Why should it not be, says one of them
that bit of black ribbon may be made tt
Indicate our bereavement as we'll as th'
suffocating Grape and serge in which W.
wrap ourselvesp A scarf of black upor
the bell-pull tells the tale of loss to thu
passers-by, and no man covers his whole
house front with funeral drapery. Ou
present mourning dress is costly, uncom
Portable, and in our climate unwholesome
The fact that the rich wear it imposes
upon the poor, who cannot afford it, AM
adds to their grief the harassing fear O
debt or new necessity of pinching.


lie believes that the hopes of those VIII,
are gone before should be symbolized il
our customs rather than the despondenc
of those who linger behind. Therefor
he would fill the house with sunshine
suffer the dear dead to rest in the familia
brightness as long as they should renal
to their beloved, let flowers abound, an


fill the air with the accustomed tones, nc


hushed lest they profane the beautiful


sweet repose. And he would bid th


monrners wear cheerful garments in toke