Stones of the Temple; Or, Lessons from the Fabric and Furniture of the Church

CHAPTER IV

GRAVE-STONES

A golden haze in the eastern sky told that the sun which had set in all his glory an hour before was now giving a bright Easter Day to Christians in other lands. The evening service was ended, and a joyful peal had just rung out from the tower of St. Catherine's, – for such was the custom there on all the great festivals of the Church, – the low hum of voices which lately rose from a group of villagers gathered near the churchyard gate was hushed; there was a pause of perfect stillness; and then the old tenor began its deep, solemn tolling for the burial of a little child. The Vicar and his friend Mr. Acres, who had been walking slowly to and fro on the churchyard path, stopped suddenly on hearing the first single beat of the burial knell, and at the same instant they saw, far down the village lane, the flickering light of the two torches borne by those who headed the little procession of Lizzie's funeral. They, too, seemed to have caught the spell, and stood mutely contemplating the scene before them. At length Mr. Acres broke silence by saying, "I know of but few Parishes where, like our own, the funerals of the poor take place by torch-light; it is, to say the least, a very picturesque custom."

"It is, indeed," replied Mr. Ambrose, "I believe, however, the poor in this place first adopted it from no such sentiment, but simply as being more convenient both to themselves and to their employers. Their employers often cannot spare them earlier in the day, and they themselves can but ill afford to lose a day's wages. But these evening funerals have other advantages. They enable many more of the friends of the departed to show this last tribute of respect to their memory than could otherwise do so; and were this practice more general, we should have fewer of those melancholy funerals where the hired bearers are the sole attendants. Then, if properly conducted, they save the poor much expense at a time when they are little able to afford it. I find that their poor neighbours will, at evening, give their services as bearers, free of cost, which they cannot afford to do earlier in the day. The family of the deceased, too, are freed from the necessity of taxing their scanty means in order to supply a day's hospitality to their visitors, who now do not assemble till after their day's labour, and immediately after the funeral retire to their own homes, and to rest. I am sorry to say, however, this was not always so. When I first came to the Parish, the evening was too often followed by a night of dissipation. But since I have induced the people to do away with hired bearers, and enter into an engagement to do this service one for another, free of charge, and simply as a Christian duty, those evils have never recurred. I once preached a sermon to them from the text, 'Devout men carried Stephen to his burial' (Acts viii. 2), in which I endeavoured to show them that none but men of good and honest report should be selected for this solemn office; and I am thankful to say, from that time all has been decent and orderly. When it is the funeral of one of our own school-children, the coffin is always carried by some of the school-teachers; I need hardly say this is simply an act of Christian charity. Moreover, this custom greatly diminishes the number of our Sunday burials, which are otherwise almost a necessity among the poor19. The Sunday, as a great Christian Festival, is not appropriate for a public ceremony of so mournful a character as that of the burial of the dead; there is, too, this additional objection to Sunday burials: that they create Sunday labour. But, considering the subject generally, I confess a preference for these evening funerals. To me they seem less gloomy, though more solemn, than those which take place in the broad light of day. When the house has been closed, and the chamber of death darkened for several days (to omit which simple acts would be like an insult to the departed), it seems both consonant with this custom which we have universally adopted, and following the course of our natural feelings, to avoid – in performing the last solemn rite – the full blaze of midday light. There is something in the noiseless going away of daylight suggestive of the still departure of human life; and in the gathering shades of evening, in harmony with one's thoughts of the grave as the place of the sleeping, and not of the dead. The hour itself invites serious thought. When a little boy, I once attended a midnight funeral; and the event left an impression on my mind which I believe will never be altogether effaced. I would not, however, recommend midnight funerals, except on very special occasions; and I must freely admit that under many circumstances evening funerals would not be practicable."

"I see," said Mr. Acres, "that the system here adopted obviates many evils which exist in the prevailing mode of Christian burial, but it hardly meets the case of large towns, especially when the burial must take place in a distant cemetery. Don't you think we want reform there, even more, perhaps, than in these rural parishes?"

"Yes, certainly, my friend, I do; and I regret to say I see, moreover, many difficulties that beset our efforts to accomplish it. Still something should be done. We all agree, it is much to be deplored that, owing to the necessity for extramural burial, the connexion between the parishioner and his parish church is, with very rare exceptions, entirely severed in the last office which the Clergy and his friends can render him, and the solemn Service of the Burial of the Dead is said in a strange place, by a stranger's voice. Now this we can at least partly remedy. I would always have the bodies of the departed brought to the parish church previous to their removal to the cemetery; and the funeral knell should be tolled, as formerly, to invite their friends and neighbours to be present, and take part in so much of the service as need not be said at the grave. It would then be no longer true, as now it is, that in many of our churches this touching and beautiful Service has never been said, and by many of the parishioners has never been heard. Then let the bearers be men of good and sober character. How revolting to one's sense of decency is the spectacle, so common in London, of hired attendants, wearing funeral robes and hat-bands20, drinking at gin-palaces, whilst the hearse and mourning coaches are drawn up outside! Then I would have the furniture of the funeral less suggestive of sorrow without hope; and specially I would have the coffin less gloomy, – I might in many cases say, less hideous: let it be of plain wood, or, if covered, let its covering be of less gloomy character, and without the trashy and unmeaning ornaments with which undertakers are used to bestud it. As regards our cemeteries, I suppose in most of them the Burial Service is said in all its integrity, but in some it is sadly mutilated. 'No fittings, sir, and a third-class grave,' said the attendant of a large cemetery the other day to a friend of mine, who had gone there to bury a poor parishioner; which in simple English was this: – 'The man was too poor to have any other than a common grave, so you must not read all the Service; and his friends are too poor to give a hat-band, so you must not wear a hood and stole.' My friend did not of course comply with the intimation."

"Well, Mr. Vicar, I hope we may see the improvements you have suggested carried out, and then such an abuse as that will not recur. Much indeed has already been done in this direction, and for this we must be thankful."

"Yes, and side by side with that, I rejoice to see an increasing improvement in the character of our tombstones and epitaphs."

"Ah, sir, there was need enough, I am sure, for that. How shocking are many of the inscriptions we find on even modern tombstones! To 'lie like an epitaph' has long been a proverb, and I fear a just one. What a host of false witnesses we have even here around us in this burial-ground! There lies John Wilk, who was – I suppose – as free from care and sickness to his dying hour as any man that ever lived; yet his grave-stone tells the old story: —

And beyond his stands the stone of that old scold Margery Torbeck, who, you know, sir, was the terror of the whole village; and of her we are told: —

I often think, Mr. Ambrose, when walking through a churchyard, if people were only half as good when living, as when dead they are said to have been, what a happy world this would be; so full of 'the best of husbands,' 'the most devoted of wives,' 'the most dutiful of sons,' and 'the most amiable of daughters.' One is often reminded of the little child's inquiry – 'Mamma, where are all the wicked people buried?' But did you ever notice that vain and foolish inscription under the north wall to the 'perpetual' memory of 'Isaac Donman, Esq.'? Poor man! I wonder whether his friends thought the 'Esq.' would perpetuate his memory. I wish it could be obliterated."

"I have told John Daniels to plant some ivy at the base of the stone, and I hope the words will be hidden by it before the summer is over. I find this the most convenient mode of concealing objectionable epitaphs. But is it not an instance of strange perversity, that where all earthly distinctions are swept away, and men of all degrees are brought to one common level, people will delight to inscribe these boastful and exaggerated praises of the departed, and so often claim for them virtues which in reality they never possessed? What can be more out of place here than pride? As regards the frail body on which is often bestowed so much vain eulogy, what truer words are there than these? —

These kind of epitaphs, too, are so very unfair to the deceased. We who knew old Mrs. Ainstie, who lies under that grand tombstone, knew her to be a good, kind neighbour; but posterity will not believe that, when posterity reads in her epitaph that 'she was a spotless woman.' It is better to say too little than too much; since our Bibles tell us that, even when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants. There are other foolish epitaphs which are the result of ignorance, not of pride. For instance, poor old Mrs. Beck, whose son is buried in yonder corner (it is too dark now to see the stone), sent me these lines for her son's grave-stone: —

I persuaded her instead to have this sentence from the Creed: – 'I believe in the communion of Saints.' When I explained to her the meaning of the words, she was grateful that I had suggested them.

The two things specially to be avoided in these memorials are flattery and falsehood; and, moreover, we should always remember that neither grave-stone nor epitaph can benefit the dead, but that both may benefit the living. Therefore a short sentence from the Bible or Prayer Book, expressive of hope beyond the grave, is always appropriate; such as: – 'I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come;' or words which either may represent the dying prayer of the deceased, or express a suitable petition for ourselves when thus reminded of our own approaching departure, such as: 'Jesus, mercy,' or 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' or 'In the hour of death, good Lord, deliver us.' How much better is some simple sentence like these than a fulsome epitaph! But the funeral is nearly at the gate; so I must hasten to meet it."

"And I will say good evening," said Mr. Acres, "as I may not see you after the service; and I thank you for drawing my attention to a subject on which I had before thought too little."

Mr. Ambrose met the funeral at the lich-gate. First came the two torch-bearers, then the coffin, borne by six school-teachers; then John and Mary Daniels, followed by their two surviving children; then came old Matthew, and after him several of little Lizzie's old friends and neighbours. Each attendant carried a small sprig of evergreen21, or some spring flowers, and, as the coffin was being lowered, placed them on it. Many tears of sadness fell down into that narrow grave, but none told deeper love than those of the old Shepherd, who lingered sorrowfully behind to close in the grave of his little friend.

CHAPTER V

THE PORCH

Mr. Ambrose only remained in the churchyard a few moments after little Lizzie's funeral, just to say some kind words to the bereaved parents and the attendant mourners, and then hastened to comply with the urgent request of a messenger, that he would without delay accompany him to the house of a parishioner living in a distant part of the Parish.

It was more than an hour ere the Vicar began to retrace his steps. His nearest way to the village lay through the churchyard, along the path he had lately traversed in earnest conversation with Mr. Acres. He paused a moment at the gate, to listen for the sound of Matthew's spade; but the old man had completed his task, and all was still. He then entered, and turned aside to look at the quiet little grave. A grassy mound now marked the spot, and it was evident that no little care had been bestowed to make it so neat and tidy.

Mr. Ambrose was slowly walking on, musing on the patient sufferings of his little friend, now gone to her rest, when just as he approached the beautiful old porch of the church his train of thought was suddenly disturbed by hearing what seemed to him the low, deep sobbing of excessive grief. The night was not so dark but that he could see distinctly within the porch, and he anxiously endeavoured to discover whether the sound had proceeded from any one who had taken shelter there for the night; but the place was evidently tenant less. "It must have been only the hum of a passing breeze, which my fancy has converted into a human voice," thought he, "for assuredly no such restless sobs as those ever escape from the deep sleepers around me here." And so the idea was soon banished and forgotten. But as he stood there, his gaze became, almost unconsciously, fixed upon the old church porch. The dim light resting upon it threw the rich carvings of its graceful arches, and deep-groined roof, with its massive bosses of sculptured stone, into all sorts of fantastic forms, and a strange mystery seemed to hang about the solemn pile, which completely riveted his attention to it, and led him into the following reverie: – "Ah, thou art indeed a 'beautiful gate of the temple'! Well and piously did our ancestors in bestowing so much wealth and labour to make thy walls so fair and lovely. And well ever have they done in crowding these noble porches with the sacred emblems of our holy faith. Rightly have they deemed that the very highest efforts of human art could not be misapplied in adorning the threshold of God's House, so that, ere men entered therein, their minds might be attuned to the solemnity of the place22. All praise, too, to those honest craftsmen who cemented these old stones so well together that they have stood the storms of centuries, and still remain the unlettered though faithful memorials of ages long gone by. Ah, how many scenes my imagination calls up as I look on this old porch! Hundreds of years ago most of the sacred offices of our Church were there in part performed. Now, I think I see the gay bridal party standing in that dusky portal23; there comes the Priest to join the hands of the young and happy pair; he pronounces over them the Church's blessing; and the bridegroom endows with her bridal portion her whom he has sworn to love till one shall die. A thousand brides and bridegrooms, full of bright hopes of happy years, have been married in that porch. Centuries ago they grew old and died, and were buried in this churchyard, but the old porch still remains in all its beauty and all its strength. There, kneeling upon that well-worn pavement, I see the mother pour forth her thankfulness to God for her deliverance from sickness, and for the babe she bears24. And now, still beneath that porch, she gives her tender infant into the arms of God's priest, that he may present it to Him in holy Baptism. In yon dark corner I seem to see standing the notorious breaker of God's commands; his head is bent down with shame, and he is clothed in the robe of penance25. Now the scene is changed: the old walls resound with the voices of noisy disputants – it is a parish meeting26, and passions long since hushed find there a clamorous expression; but there stands the stately form of the peace-maker, and the noisy tongue of the village orator is heard no more. Yes, rise up, Sir Knight, who, with thy hands close clasped as if in ceaseless prayer, hast lain upon that stony couch for five long centuries, and let thy manly step be heard beneath that aged roof once more; for, though a warrior, thou wast a good and peace-loving man, and a devout worshipper in this temple, or, I trust, thy burial-place would never have been in this old porch27."

The eyes of the Vicar were fixed upon the recumbent effigy of an old knight lying beneath its stone canopy on the western side of the porch (of which, however, only a dim outline was visible), when the same sound that had before startled him was repeated, followed by what seemed the deep utterance of earnest prayer, but so far off as to be but faintly heard. He stood in motionless attention for a short time, and then the voice ceased. He then saw a flickering light on one of the farthest windows of the chancel; slowly it passed from window to window, till it reached that nearest to the spot where he was standing. Then there was a narrow line of light in the centre of the doorway; gradually it widened, and there stood before him the venerable form of the old shepherd.

CHAPTER VI

THE PORCH

"The Vicar's first impulse, on recovering from his surprise at so unexpectedly meeting with the old Shepherd in such a place, at such an hour, was, if possible, to escape unnoticed, and to leave the churchyard without suffering him to know what he had heard and seen; but at that instant the light fell full upon him, and concealment was impossible.

"You'll be surprised, Mr. Ambrose," said the old man, "at finding me in the church at this late time. But it has, I assure you, been a great comfort for me to be here."

"My good friend," replied the Vicar, "I know you have been making good use of God's House, and I only wish there were more disposed to do the like. I rejoice to hear you have found consolation, for to-day has been one of heavy sorrow to you, and you needed that peace which the world cannot give. How often it is that we cannot understand these trials until we go into the House of the Lord, and then God makes it all plain to us."

"I've learnt that to-night, sir, as I never learnt it before. When I had put the last bit of turf on the little grave, and knew that all my work was over, there was such a desolate, lonely-like feeling came over me, that I thought my old heart must break; and then, all of a sudden, it got into my head that I would come into the church. But it was more dull and lonesome there than ever. It was so awful and quiet, I became quite fearful and cowed, quite like a child, you know, sir. When I stood still, I hardly dared look round for fear I should see something in the darkness under the old grey arches, and when I moved, the very noise of my footsteps, which seemed to sound in every corner, frightened me. However, I took courage, and went on. Then I opened this Prayer Book, and the first words I saw were these in the Baptismal Service: – 'Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.' So I knelt down at the altar rails and prayed, as I think I never prayed before, that I might in my old age become as good as the little maid I had just buried, and be as fit to die as I really believe she was. Then I said those prayers you see marked in the book, sir (she put the marks), and at last I came to those beautiful words in the Communion Service (there is a cross put to them, and I felt sure she meant me particularly to notice them): – 'We bless and praise Thy holy Name for all Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and fear.' I stood up, and said that over and over again; and as I did so, somehow all my fear and lonesomeness went away, and I was quite happy. It was this that made me so happy: I felt sure, sir, quite sure, that my poor dear wife and our child and little Lizzie were close to me. I could not see nor hear them, but for all that I was somehow quite certain that they were there rejoicing with me, and praising God for all the good people He had taken to Himself. Oh! I shall never forget this night, sir; the thought of it will always make me happy. You will never see me again so cast down as I have been lately."

"Well, Matthew, you cannot at least be wrong in allowing what you have felt and believed to fix more firmly in your faith the Church's glorious doctrine of the communion of saints."

For some time each stood following out in his own mind the train of thought which these words suggested. Matthew was the first to break silence, by begging the Vicar kindly to go with him into the room above where they were standing, as he wished there to ask a favour of him.

Matthew returned into the church to find the key of the chamber, and Mr. Ambrose at once recognized the volume which he had left on the stone seat of the porch, as that from which Lizzie was used to read when she sat beside the old Shepherd on the neighbouring hill. He took it up, and, opening it at the Burial Office, he found there a little curl of lovely fair hair marking the place. The page was still wet – it was the dew of evening, gentle tears of love and sorrow shed by one whose night was calmly and peacefully coming on.