Death--and After?

man has a spirit that comes from anywhere or goes to any other place than, perhaps, could ever before have been found at one time in the world's history. And the very Christians who claim that the terrors of Death have been abolished have surrounded the funeral bier and the tomb with more gloom and more dismal funeral pomp than have the followers of any other faith. What can be more depressing than the darkness in which a house is kept shrouded while the dead body awaits sepultureThe act of burial or the placing of a body in a tomb.? What is more repellent than the sweeping robes of dull crapeA harsh, scratchy, matte black silk fabric used historically for mourning clothes to signify deep grief., and the intentional ugliness of the heavy cap in which the widow laments the "deliverance" of her husband "from the burden of the flesh"? What is more revolting than the artificially long faces of the undertaker's men, the drooping weepersLong black fabric bands or veils worn on hats or arms as a visible sign of mourning., the carefully-arranged white handkerchiefs, and, until lately, the shroud-like funeral cloaks? During the last few years, a great and marked improvement has been made. The plumes, cloaks, and weepers have almost disappeared. The grotesquely ghastly hearse is almost a thing of the past, and the coffin goes out covered with flowers instead of being shrouded in a heavy black velvet pallA heavy cloth draped over a coffin.. Men and women, though still wearing black, do not wrap themselves in shapeless garments like black winding-sheetsA cloth in which a corpse is wrapped for burial; here, the author compares bulky mourning clothes to burial shrouds., as if trying to see how miserable they could make themselves by imposing artificial discomforts. Welcome common sense has driven these customs from their throne and has refused any longer to add these unnecessary annoyances to natural human grief.

In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity.