p. 10 | Flowers at Funerals by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 40.

Flowers at Funerals

By Editor

A RECENT number of the Paris Journal des Missions Évangéliques contains the following paragraph: "In the list of last month's gifts one sees with emotion the mention of a sum of 1,897 francs [more than $397] received, according to the wish of Elizabeth Wennagel, instead of flowers for her grave. Our young sister, before her end, wished that no one might send any flowers, but that the cost of those which might have been bought could be given to missions. The news of this desire spread among her friends, and they all deferred to it. Her parents know that they have our fraternal sympathy. They have only consented to the publication of these lines in the hope that such an example might inspire other children of God upon their bed of death." The expenditure for flowers at funerals is enormous, and in nowise benefits the dead. How much better were the means thus spent invested in the salvation of the perishing souls yet alive! At a recent funeral of a theatrical celebrity in New York, the value of the flowers was estimated at $12,000. Where friends can contribute flowers from their own gardens there can be

nothing more appropriate than to wreathe them about the burial cases of our dead friends. But when they have to be bought at immense cost, the case is different—at least for those who are seeking to do all they can to help their fellow-men.