Funeral mass

“ The first class of funerals are of great pomp: they include bearers, crosses, plumes, eighteen mourning coaches and attendants, grand mass at church, 120 lbs. of wax tapers, an anniversary service, and material of mourning cloth; and also the attendance of Monsieur le Curé, two vicars, twenty-one priests, six singers and ten chorister boys, and two instrumental performers, at a cost of 145l., for a funeral superior in magnificence perhaps to any private funeral in England. ”

“ The Church, to use the fox-hunting phrase, must be in at the death; and how truly would a simple funeral, without pageantry, in some sort—a cold, unceremonious burial, without mutes, and streamers, and feathers—without bell, book, or candle—flout and scandalize the gorgeous Church of England! The Church and the State are connected, so intimately and indissolubly connected, that he, who dies in the arms of Mother Church, must permit that particular old lady, in the matter of his funeral, to indulge her ruling passion, for costly forms and ceremonies. ”

“ The one buried that day I had known, or she had known me in my boyhood, and it was expected that I would attend. My mother sent the wreath that belongs,—there is both sense and sentiment in flowers at a funeral when they are wreathed by the hands of those who loved the dead, as is still the custom here; none where they are bought at a florist's and paid for with a growl,—and we stood around the coffin and sang the old hymns, then walked behind it, two by two, men and women, to the grave, singing as we passed through the gate. ”

“ While you are admiring the flowers and trees a funeral enters the gates. The body is carried by four professional bearers and is followed by two priests and the relatives and friends. All the mourners are clothed in white. They walk two by two, no matter how distant may be the house of death, each couple holding a handkerchief as a symbol of their union in sorrow. When the procession reaches the top of the hill the mourners diverge and take seats in the house of prayer, where the sacred fire is burning, or they seat themselves in the beautiful garden for meditation and prayer. ”

“ They looked for the signs of death at every door—the sexton, the hearse, the assemblage of black-clad relatives, all that makes up the woful pomp of funerals. They raised their eyes, also, to the sun-gilded spire of the church, and wondered that no clang proceeded from its bell, which had always tolled till now when this figure appeared in the light of day. But none had heard that a corpse was to be borne to its home that afternoon, nor was there any token of a funeral except the apparition of the Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet.
"What may this portend?" asked each man of his neighbor. ”

“ A funeral procession is an imposing spectacle, and, to the uninstructed foreigner, a cheerful one; for there is nothing sad or sombre in the white, or bright-colored, robes of the priests, the white, tinsel-decorated bier, the red and white flags borne aloft, the enormous bunches of gay-colored flowers;—the very mourners in white silk, and with faces apparently unmoved by grief, bring no thought of the object of the procession to the Western mind. ”

“ Exaggeration is to be deprecated in mourning as in everything. The discarding of mourning should be effected by slow stages. It shocks persons of good taste to see a widow change into colors hurriedly. If black is to be dispensed with, let its retirement be slowly and gracefully marked by quiet costumes, as the grief, yielding to time, is giving way to resignation and cheerfulness.
Before a funeral the ladies of a family see no one but the most intimate friends. The gentlemen, of course, see the clergyman and officials who manage the ceremony. ”

“ How much better to have a small funeral! a funeral remarkable for nothing but its modesty and simplicity, to which only the few are called who knew the dead and loved him, who follow him to his long home with serious thoughts, like thinking men and Christians, remembering that before long they must go with him into the grave and lie down beside him, and who return home to remember his soul before God as often as they kneel down to pray. ”

“ The population flocked in from thirty miles round to attend the funeral. Five hundred men followed the crimson-draped car with palms and laurel branches; children clad in white bore crimson banners that fluttered in the breeze, while their voices rose in hymns of victory, giving glory to God and the Christian soldier; the voices of the multitude made response in chorus, and the waves, breaking in low thunder against the rocks, sounded their everlasting amens as the procession wound its way by the sea-shore to the cemetery. ”

“ A costly casket, a profusion of flowers and a long funeral procession merely gratify a foolish and ostentatious pride on the part of the survivors, and often entail a heavy burden on the father or husband. ”

“ So the custom of funeralizing the dead long after burial grew from a necessity. The funeralizing of a departed kinsman or friend was published from the pulpit. The bereaved family set a day, months or even a year in advance, for the purpose of having the preacher eulogize their beloved dead. “Come the third Sunday in May next summer,” a mountain preacher could be heard in mid winter publishing the occasion. “Brother Tom’s funeral will be held here at Christy Creek church house.” ”

“ Which be-wept to the grave did go, With true love showers. There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed in some of the remote villages of the south at the funeral of a female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl nearest in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterwards hung up in the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased. ”

“ The ceremonies of the funeral are performed by the neighbours and cunning men and women of the village, and the old people of the family. The wife, children, parents, brothers and sisters of the dead sit beside him and mourn, in spite of corruption, or even sleep beside the decomposing corpse. “It is genuine grief, a national characteristic. Even after the funeral service, they remember and mourn; and the death of another renews their grief.” The mourners continue their lamentation, heedless of the dancing. ”

“ Friends and relatives joined the procession and the demonstrations became the louder. If the deceased person had been of wide repute, many other people went into the line of mourners and hired mourners were employed to increase the lamentations and thereby enlarge the public display of respect to the dead. For seventy-two days the mourning was carried on in the house, lamentations were made, the funeral dirge was sung, all amusements and indulgences were abstained from, and the men allowed their hair and beard to grow. ”

“ Funeral orations, full of the most vehement eulogies, and interrupted by complaints and reproaches against the dead man for his unkindness in going away from them, are incessantly delivered. These ceremonies completed, they place the corpse in a kind of coffin, along with various emblems of the rank of the departed, and leave it to decay. ”

“ As she spoke a dark procession paced into the church. First came an old man and woman, like chief mourners at a funeral, attired from head to foot in the deepest black, all but their pale features and hoary hair, he leaning on a staff and supporting her decrepit form with his nerveless arm. ”

“ The funeral was scrupulously held before the second sun went down, and had to be hurried a little, because the morgue authorities, hobbled of red tape, move as slowly as the sea itself in giving up the dead. The coffin—of poorest pine—was knocked to pieces in the grave, before the clods of earth were shoveled in and the doomsday sods laid on. The garments of him who acted as principal mourner were faithfully torn; that is to say, the rabbi cut a careful slit in the lapel of that mourner's waistcoat where it wouldn't show. ”

“ The best sites are reserved for graves; the best wood is used for coffins; the merriest music to our ears is that heard at funerals. But of all funerals of which I have heard, I think this one is the most amusing. A woman about fifty years old, fearing that her 196 son, a worthless spendthrift, would not accord her a grand funeral after her death, hit upon the plan of enjoying one before that event. ”

“ There are few ceremonies in life at once so touching, so impressive, so sad, and yet so beautiful as a soldier’s funeral! Ordinary funerals, with their unwieldy hearses and feathers, and the absurd looking mutes, and the “inky cloaks” and weepers of hired mourners, always seem to me like a mockery of the dead; the appointments border so closely on the grotesque; they are so little in keeping with the true, the only view of death that can render life endurable! ”

“ In 1899, immediately after death in a family one of the first duties was to purchase a casket and arrange with an undertaker for the funeral. In their unhappy frame of mind, with hearts bowed in grief, undertakers often made terms their own way with mourners. ”

“ And he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
When the bier, with the casket, was set down before the altar, and the chief mourners—the two sons of the deceased, who had followed it—had taken their seats in the rectory pew, then the funeral services, conducted by the curate, went on to their solemn ending.
At the close the parishoniers came out of their pews in an orderly manner, and passing on from the right to the left before the casket, took their last look at the mask of their deceased pastor. ”

“ Between three and four o'clock in the morning I took my family there, that they might see the face of our beloved martyr, and we had to take our place in a line as far away as Park Row. It is impossible to give any adequate description of the funeral—whose like was never seen before or since—when eminent authors, clergymen, judges and distinguished civilians walked on foot through streets, shrouded in black to the house tops. The whole journey to Springfield, Ill., was one constant manifestation of poignant grief. The people rose in the night, simply to see the funeral train pass by. ”

“ The priest conducts the funeral ceremonies in the ordinary and usual way of mortuary proceedings observed by the Catholic church all over the world. While the grave-diggers are filling up the grave, the friends, relatives, neighbors, and, in fact, all persons that attend the funeral, give vent to their sad feelings by making the whole pueblo howl ”

“ Then came a funeral—the sheeted corpse on the shallow cot, the brisk-pacing bearers (if he was good, the sooner he is buried the sooner in heaven; if bad, bury him swiftly for the sake of the household—either way, as the Prophet says, do not let the mourners go too long weeping and hungry) —the women behind, tossing their arms and lamenting, and men and boys chanting low and high. ”

“ Others of the same profession who have not been called to administer to the patient attend the funeral, their object being to secure whatever property they can by loud crying, cutting their hair and bodies, and other display of profound grief. Nothing resembling a prayer is said over the dead at the burial nor anything spoken. Indeed, on account of their loud lamentations it would be impossible to hear it if it were. Some weeks afterwards, however, other ceremonies take place regarding the dead which will be described in another place. ”

“ If the hat is worn, it must be removed as the coffin passes from the hearse to the church, when the guests form a double line, down which it is carried, and the same line and observance must be made after the service, as the coffin is carried from the church to the hearse again.
If lady friends attend a funeral, if they are not in mourning, they should wear grave, quiet colors. To go to a funeral in a gay dress is insulting. ”

“ In case of death they make use of various funeral obsequies. Some bury their dead with water and provisions placed at their heads, thinking they may have occasion to eat and drink, but they make no parade in the way of funeral ceremonies. ”

“ If a prominent citizen died, he never failed to attend the funeral, and, where possible, to join the procession on the way to the cemetery. He would stand by the grave with bowed head, and take in every word of the funeral discourse. ”

“ It is for this reason that funeral and mourning practices are highly conventional. Another reason, perhaps, is because death is a shock, and a round of conventional ceremonies alleviates that strained feeling during the period of readjustment.
Thus, the members of the bereaved family should be left as nearly alone to their grief as possible. Nothing in the nature of business should be thrust upon them. A male member of the family should take complete charge; or the immediate duties may be left in the hands of the nearest outside relatives. ”

“ After a funeral it is natural enough for the mourners to dream of the dead, and they at once conclude that they have been visited by his revenant. After a funeral feast—a great gorging of pork or beef—it is very natural that the sense of oppression and pain felt should be associated with the dear departed, and should translate itself into the idea that he has come from his grave to sit on the chests of those who have bewailed him. ”

“ A public funeral was decreed as a national expression of the pervading grief at the irreparable loss of "two as gallant spirits as ever sacrificed life for the extension of science and the cause of mankind." ”