EPITAPH 



2065 



EPITAPH 



Church of England in 1789 and prepared a 

 constitution of its own. The prayer book 

 adopted was nearly like that of the English 

 Church, and in belief and organization the sect 

 remained much the same. Although great 

 effort was exerted to unite under this new 

 organization the various bodies who owed origi- 

 nal allegiance to the Church of England, the 

 Church made very little progress until after 

 1811. Then the membership increased rapidly, 

 and churches were established in thirteen states 

 during the next ten years. The total member- 

 ship in 1917 was nearly 1,000,000. The Church 

 is governed by a general conference, which 

 meets every three years and is composed of 

 the bishops and four clergymen and four lay- 

 men from each diocese. Chief among the agen- 

 cies within the Church which aid its work are 

 eighteen sisterhoods, several orders of Deacon- 

 esses, and the Brotherhood of Saint Andrew, 

 which enlists the active work of laymen and 

 which has been very successful. 



EPITAPH, ep'itaj. For ages past man has 

 been accustomed to inscribe memorial words 

 on the tombstones or other monuments placed 

 above the graves of the dead. Such inscrip- 

 tions are known as epitaphs, a term from two 

 Greek words meaning upon and tomb. The 

 term is also applied to literary memorials com- 

 posed in honor of the dead, but not intended 

 to be inscribed on a burial monument. The 

 earliest-known epitaphs are those found on an- 

 cient Egyptian coffins, but these are simply 

 statements of the name and family of the de- 

 ceased, accompanied by a prayer to one of the 

 gods, and there is no attempt to praise the 

 character of the dead or to express the feelings 

 of the survivors. The Greeks excelled in the 

 composing of memorial inscriptions, those writ- 

 ten by Simonides in honor of the heroes who 

 perished at the Pass of Thermopylae being 

 especially famous. Of these the most cele- 

 brated is the following: 



Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by, 

 That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. 



A well-known Latin epitaph is that in honor 

 of Alexander the Great "Here a mound suf- 

 fices for one for whom the world was not large 

 enough." Shakespeare himself is said to have 

 written the quaint lines that are engraved on 

 his tomb at Stratford, though poetically they 

 seem unworthy of him: 



Good frend, for Jesus' sake forbeare 

 To digg the dust enclosed heare ; 

 Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, 

 And cur.t be he that moves my bones. 

 130 



Of equal interest is the epitaph written by 

 Benjamin Franklin for himself: 



The body of 



Benjamin Franklin, Printer, 

 Like the cover of an old book, 



Its contents worn out, 

 And stript of its lettering and gilding 



Lies here food for the worms, 



Yet the work itself shall not be lost, 



For it shall, as he believes, 



appear once more, 



in a new 



and more beautiful edition 



Corrected and amended 



By the Author. 



Robert Louis Stevenson lies under a moun- 

 tain tomb in Samoa, upon which are inscribed 

 the following noble lines from his own pen: 



Under the wide and starry sky. 

 Dig the grave and let me lie. 

 Glad did I live and gladly die, 

 And I laid me down with a will. 



This be the verse you grave for me : 

 "Here he lies where he longed to be ; 

 Home is the sailor, home from the sea. 

 And the hunter home from the hill." 



On the tombstones in the, old English church- 

 yards one may read many curious epitaphs. 

 Over the grave of a useful member of the 

 town of Weston appear these lines: 



Here lies entomb'd within this vault so dark, 

 A tailor, cloth-drawer, soldier, and parish clerk ; 

 Death snatched him hence, and also from him 



took 



His needle, thimble, sword, and prayer-book. 

 He could not work, nor fight what then? 

 He left the world, and faintly cried, "Amen !" 



Near the west end of Holy Trinity Church, 

 Stalham, Norfolk, there is a gravestone bearing 

 this inscription: 



John Amies, 1831. 

 Here lies an honest independent man, 



Boast more ye great ones if ye can ; 

 I have been kicked by a bull and ram, 



Now let me lay contented as I am. 



The epitaphs on the headstones in New 

 England burial grounds are often quaintly 

 philosophical. One departed sister, who sleeps 

 in the graveyard of Rowley, Mass., thus ad- 

 monishes the living: 



Here in the silent grave I lie 

 No more the scenes of life to try, 

 And you, dear friends, I leave behind, 

 Must soon this gloomy mansion find. 



In the famous old Boston cemetery called 

 Copp's Hill Burial Ground is the following 

 eulogy in verse, representative of many others: 



