CUSTOMS AT FUK-E'BlA'LS. 
that, the ancient Christians used the things before mentionfedi^' aM 
deposited them under the corpse in the grave, to signify that they who 
die in Christ do not cease to live; for though, as to the body, th^y 
die to the world, yet, as to their sonis, they live and revive to God. - 
And as the carrying these evergreens is an emblem of the soul’s im- 
mortality, so it is also of the resurrection of the body : for as these 
herbs are not entirely plucked up, but only cut down, and will, at the 
returning season, revive and spring up again : so the body, like thenij 
is but cut down for a while, and will rise and shoot up again at the 
resurrection : for, in the language of the evangelical prophet, ** out 
bones shall flourish like an herb.” Bourne cites Gregory, c. 26, as 
observing that it was customary among the ancient Jews, as they 
returned from the grave, to pluck up the grass two or three times, 
and then throw it behind them, saying these words of the psalmist, 
* They shall flourish out of the city like grass upon the earth,’ which 
they did, to shew, that the body though dead, should spring up as the 
grass. • Various are the proofs of the ancient custom of carrying out 
the dead with psalmody in the primitive church ; in imitation of which 
it>is still customary, in many parts of this nation, to carry out the 
dead with singing of psalms and hymns of triumph; to shew that 
they have ended their spiritual warfare, that they have finished their 
course with joy, and become conquerors. This exultation, as it w^ere, 
for the conquest of their deceased friend over hell, sin, and death, 
was the great ceremony used in all funeral processions among the 
ancient Christians. In poems by the Rev. John Black, minister of 
Burley, in Suffolk, 8vo. Ipsw. 1799, p. 10, in * An elegy on the Author’s 
Mother, who was buried in the church-yard of Dunichen in Scotland/ 
is, the following stanza: 
' ■ Oh, how my soul was griev’d, w/ie/i I let fall 
The string that dropt her silent in the grave ! 
Yet thought I then, I heard her spirit call : 
‘Safe I have passed through death’s overwhelming wave/ 
On the second line the author has this note: 
‘ In Scotland, it is the custom of the relations of the deceased theni-»^ 
selves to let down the corpse into the grave, by mourning cords fast-^ 
ened to the handles of the coffin ; the chief mourner standing at the 
head, and the rest of the relations arranged according to their propin- 
quity, When the coffin is let down and adjusted in the grave, the 
mourners first, and then all the surrounding multitude, uncover their 
heads: there is no funeral service read ; but that solemn pause for 
about the space of ten minutes, when every one is supposed to be medP 
tating on death and immortality, always struck my heart in the most 
awful manner, and on one interesting occasion with peculiar solemnity. 
The sound of the cord, when it fell on the coffin, still seems to vibrate 
pii niy ear/' 
Torches and Lights at Funerals. — ^The custom of using torches and 
lights at funerals, or in funeral processions, appears to have been of 
long standing. The learned Gregory tells us that ‘ the funeral tapers, 
however thought of by some, are of hai mlesse import. Their meaning 
is to shew that the departed soules are not quite put out, but, having 
