The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories

In the LEDGER (same copy referred to above) I find the following (I alter surname, as usual):

Welch.—On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch, and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year of her age.

A mother dear, a mother kind, 
Has gone and left us all behind. 
Cease to weep, for tears are vain, 
Mother dear is out of pain. 

Farewell, husband, children dear, 
Serve thy God with filial fear, 
And meet me in the land above, 
Where all is peace, and joy, and love.

What could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts (without reduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated than is done in the first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more concise and comprehensive program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc., could be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the last stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and better. Another extract:

Ball.—On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John and Sarah F. Ball.

'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope 
That when my change shall come 
Angels will hover round my bed, 
To waft my spirit home.

The following is apparently the customary form for heads of families:

Burns.—On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.

Dearest father, thou hast left us, 
Hear thy loss we deeply feel; 
But 'tis God that has bereft us, 
He can all our sorrows heal.

Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.

There is something very simple and pleasant about the following, which, in Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives of long standing. (It deplores four distinct cases in the single copy of the LEDGER which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):

Bromley.—On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley, in the 50th year of his age.

Affliction sore long time he bore, 
Physicians were in vain— 
Till God at last did hear him mourn, 
And eased him of his pain. 

That friend whom death from us has torn, 
We did not think so soon to part; 
An anxious care now sinks the thorn 
Still deeper in our bleeding heart.

This beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the contrary, the oftener one sees it in the LEDGER, the more grand and awe-inspiring it seems.

With one more extract I will close:

Doble.—On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble, aged 4 days.

Our little Sammy's gone, 
His tiny spirit's fled; 
Our little boy we loved so dear 
Lies sleeping with the dead. 

A tear within a father's eye, 
A mother's aching heart, 
Can only tell the agony 
How hard it is to part.

Could anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further concessions of grammar? Could anything be likely to do more toward reconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go? Perhaps not. The power of song can hardly be estimated. There is an element about some poetry which is able to make even physical suffering and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be desired. This element is present in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia degree of development.

The custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted in all the cities of the land.

It is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the Rev. T. K. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon—a man who abhors the lauding of people, either dead or alive, except in dignified and simple language, and then only for merits which they actually possessed or possess, not merits which they merely ought to