ful lesson is given. Their senses are all ab→ sorbed in the show; and the thoughts of the worthlessness of man, as well as of death and the grave, which ought naturally to suggest themselves on such occasions, are swallowed up in the grandeur and pageantry of the procession. Funerals therefore of this kind are calculated to throw honour upon riches, abstractedly of moral merit; to make the creature of as much importance when dead as when alive; to lessen the humility of man; and to destroy of course the moral and religious feelings that should arise upon such occasions. Add to which, that such a conduct among Christians must be peculiarly improper. For the Christian dispensation teaches man, that he is to work out his salvation with "fear and trembling." It seems inconsistent, therefore, to accompany with all the outward signs of honour and greatness the body of a poor wretch, who has had this difficult and awful task to perform, and for whom, if we were to judge of him by the deeds done in the flesh, there would probably be reason to fear, that he had been criminally deficient in the execution of it. Actuated by such sentiments as these, the Quakers Quakers have discarded all parade at their funerals. When they die, they are buried in a manner singularly plain. The corpse is deposited in a plain coffin. When carried to the meeting-house or grave-yard, it is attended by relations and friends. These have nothing different at this time, in their external garments, from their ordinary dress, Neither man nor horse is apparelled for the purpose. All pomp and parade, however rich the deceased may have been, are banished from their funeral-processions. The corpse at length arrives at the meetinghouse *. It is suffered to remain there in the sight of the spectators. The congregation then sit in silence, as at a meeting for worship. If any one feels himself induced to speak, he delivers himself accordingly : if not, no other rite is used at this time. In process of time the coffin is taken out of the meeting-house, and carried to the grave. Many of the acquaintance of the deceased, both members and others, follow it. It is at length placed by the side of the grave. A solemn silent pause immediately takes * It is sometimes buried without being carried there. place. place. It is then interred. Another shorter pause then generally follows. These pauses are made, that the "spectators may be more deeply touched with a sense of their approaching exit, and their future state.” If a minister or other person, during these pauses, has any observation or exhortation to make, (which is frequently the case) he makes it. If no person should feel himself impressed to speak, the assembled persons depart. The act of seeing the body deposited in the grave is the last public act of respect which the Quakers show to their deceased relations. This is the whole of the process of their funerals. SECTION II. Quakers use no vaults in their burying-grounds— Relations sometimes buried near each other, but oftener otherwise-They use no tomb-stones or monumental inscriptions-reasons for this disuse but they sometimes record accounts of the lives, deaths, and dying sayings of their ministers. THE members of this Society, in the infancy of it, were buried in their gardens or orchards, orchards, or in the fields and premises of one another. They had at that time no grave-yards of their own. And they re fused to be buried in those of the church, lest they should thus acknowledge the validity of a human appointment of the priesthood, the propriety of payment for gospellabour, and the peculiar holiness of consecrated ground. This refusal to be buried within the precincts of the church was considered as the bearing of their testimony for truth. In process of time, they raised their own meeting-houses, and had their respective burying-places. These were not always contiguous, but sometimes at a distance from one another. The Quakers have no sepulchres or arched vaults under ground for the reception of their dead. There have been here and there vaults, and there are here and there graves with sides of brick; but the coffins containing their bodies are usually committed to the dust. I may observe also, that the Quakers are sometimes buried near their relations, but more frequently otherwise. In places where their population is thin, and the burial VOL. II. ground ground large, a relation is buried next to a relation if it be desired. In other places, however, the graves are usually dug in rows, and the bodies deposited in them, not as their relations lie, but as they happen to be opened in succession, without any attention to family-connections. When the first grave in the row is opened and filled, the person who dies next is put into that which is next to it; and the person who dies next, occupies that which is next to the second *. It is to many an endearing thought, that they shall lie after their death near the remains of those, whom they loved in life. But the Quakers in general have not thought it right or wise to indulge such feelings. They believe that all good men, however their bodies may be separated in their subterraneous houses of clay, will assuredly meet at the resurrection of the just. They reject also the fashions of the world in the use of tomb-stones and monumental *By this process a small piece of ground will be longer in filling, no room being lost, and the danger and disagreeable necessity of opening graves, before the bodies in them are decayed, is avoided. inscriptions. |