Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)Sargent, Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius)
History
Dealings with the Dead, Volume 2 (of 2)
Sargent, Lucius M. (Lucius Manlius)
Death; Funeral rites and ceremonies; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- United States
Some five years after the testator's burial, the tomb was again opened, to
let in the residuary legatee. Peter's was a grand funeral. The Evening
Post, of March 3, 1742-3, foretold, that it would be such; but the papers,
which, doubtless, gave an account of it, are lost--the files are
imperfect, of all those primitive journals. At first, and for years, the
resting place of Peter's remains was well enough known. But the rust of
time began to gather upon men's memories. The Faneuil arms, ere long,
became unintelligible, to such, as strolled among the tombs. That
"_handsome chariot, but nothing gaudy_," with Peter's armorial bearings
upon its panels, no longer rolled along Treamount, and Queen Streets, and
Cornhill, and drew up, of a Sabbath morning, before Trinity Church, that
brother Peter and the ladies might sit upon their cushions, in No. 40,
while brother Addington Davenport gave them a sermon, upon the Apostolical
succession. The good people had therefore forgotten all about the Faneuil
arms; and, before a great many years had rolled away, the inquiry
naturally arose, in popular phraseology--"_Whereabouts was it, that Peter
Faneuil was buried?_"
Some worthy old citizen--God bless him--who knew rather more of this
matter than his neighbors, and was well aware, that the arms would be but
a dead letter to posterity, resolved to serve the public, and remedy the
defect. Up he goes into the Granary Ground, in the very spirit of Old
Mortality, and, with all his orthography in his ear, inscribes P. FUNEL
upon the tablet!
No. CXXXII.
"_But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever._" Mark i. 30. From this
text, a clergyman--_of the old school_--had preached just as many,
consecutive sermons, as I have already published articles, concerning
Peter Faneuil and his family. A day or two after the last discourse, the
bell of the village church was tolled, for a funeral; and a long-suffering
parishioner, being asked, whose funeral it was, replied, that he had no
doubt it was Simon's wife's mother's; for she had been sick of a fever,
for nine weeks, to his certain knowledge. Let the reader possess himself
in patience--our dealings with the Faneuils cannot last forever.
We have stated, that Peter's death was sudden, the very death, from which,
as a churchman, he had prayed to be delivered. But let us not forget, that
no death is sudden, in the sense of the good man's prayers, however
instantaneously the golden bowl may be broken, to him, whose life has been
well spent, and who is prepared to die.
In this connection, two interesting questions arise--how Peter Faneuil
came to be a churchman--and if his life was a well-spent life, affording
him reasonable assurance of admission into Paradise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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