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The Funeral

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 17, 1874

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 43, No. 10.

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The Funeral.

By Jos. Clarke

How it breaks in upon the routine of life! No matter how you may be hurried with business, labor, and care, the funeral procession arrests your attention. You inquire who it is; you look to see the coffin, if it is small, or middle size, or full size; you for a moment forget your farm or store, and think of the funeral, and inquire about the deceased. The subject of mortality and death is forced upon you; the grave and its tenants are before you; it seems to come in solemn procession before your mind, and you feel that you too may die, for death's sentence is universal.
It is a subject not to be put off, and you solemnly meditate upon the theme as the funeral procession passes by. The attendant circumstances all loom up before you—the last sickness; the parting tears and words; the last fond look; the death struggle; the still, cold form, so precious, hastening to decay; the features, once so beautiful, now motionless and forsaken; then the coffin; the shroud; the short interval of solemn interest while the corpse awaits its burial in its deathly robes, and bereaved ones sorrow over the last relic of what was once the hope, and delight, and refuge of many now sad hearts.
The appointed hour arrives too soon, and the hearse comes on its solemn errand. The funeral ceremonies for a moment call the attention; the solemn appeal of the preacher, as he talks of life and immortality, Heaven, the resurrection, and the life. The coffin is lowered into its narrow house; the earth falls heavily upon it; the grave is decently arranged, and the benediction is pronounced. The congregation retires in silence, and the mourners in their sadness return home to meditate more practically upon their loss; the friends sigh, but breathe more free again; and, little by little, the grave is forgotten; but the still tenant of the tomb awaits in silence the final trumpet which shall soon awake the dead. JOS. CLARKE.