Jan., 1915. RECORDS. 107 



In whatever guise this figure appears it 

 is always a personification of the destroyer 

 of the human race. Like the skeleton ex- 

 hibited at ancient Roman feasts it is intend- 

 ded as a warning of the certainty of death. 



A glance at the history of the times 

 when this emblem was used shows us that 

 Death was a very near neighbor of the New 

 England colonist, and frequently came in the 

 hours of darkness preceded by the dreaded 

 war-whoop of the relentless savage. For ov- 

 er a hundred years the tomahawk a^d scalp- 

 ing knife were the terror of our frontiers- 

 man and his family. With this constant 

 probability of meeting Death iace to face any 

 warning would appear quite unnecessary. 



It is quite possible that the gloomy re- 

 ligious ideas of the day may have had much 

 to do with the appearance of this Angel of 

 Death on head-stones. Not only were the 

 woodlands peopled by Indians, but in the 

 belief of all men these same surrounding 

 shades w r ere inhabited by the nrch-fiend Sa- 

 tan himself and by whole legions of his imps. 



