Sometimes an old epitaph will be found of such impressive though simple language that it clings long in the memory. Such is this verse of gentle quaintness over the grave of a tender Puritan blossom, the child of an early settler:
"Submit Submitted to her heavenly Kinge
Being a flower of that Aeternal Spring
Neare 3 years old shee dyed in Heaven to waite
The Yeare was sixteen hundred 48."
Another of unusual beauty and sentiment is this:
"I came in the morning—it was Spring
And I smiled.
I walked out at noon—it was Summer
And I was glad.
I sat me down at even—it was Autumn
And I was sad.
I laid me down at night—it was Winter
And I slept."
Collections of curious old epitaphs have been made and printed, but seem dull and colorless on the printed page, and the warning words seem to lose their power unless seen in the sad graveyard, where, "silently expressing old mortality," the hackneyed rhymes and tender words are touching from their very simplicity and the loneliness which surrounds them, and for their calm repetition, on stone after stone, of an undying faith in a future life.
One cannot help being impressed, when studying the almanacs, diaries, and letters of the time, with the strange exaltation of spirit with which the New England Puritan regarded death. To him thoughts of mortality were indeed cordial to the soul. Death was the event, the condition, which brought him near to God and that unknown world, that "life elysian" of which he constantly spoke, dreamed and thought; and he rejoiced mightily in that close approach, in that sense of touch with the spiritual world. With unaffected cheerfulness he yielded himself to his own fate, with unforced resignation he bore the loss of dearly loved ones, and with eagerness and almost affection he regarded all the gloomy attributes and surroundings of death. Sewall could find in a visit to his family tomb, and in the heart-rending sight of the coffins therein, an "awfull yet pleasing Treat;" while Mr. Joseph Eliot said "that the two days wherein he buried his wife and son were the best he ever had in the world." The accounts of the wondrous and almost inspired calm which settled on those afflicted hearts, bearing steadfastly the Christian belief as taught by the Puritan church, make us long for the simplicity of faith, and the certainty of heaven and happy reunion with loved ones which they felt so triumphantly, so gloriously.
Transcriber's Note
Spelling, punctuation and inconcistencies in the original book have been retained.