[Jaxup-interest] ons of dress; and

[Whiteford C. <tra...@in...>]

 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