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
Jonny Moorhead was a man of a kind heart and a pleasant fancy. He came
hither from Belfast, in 1727. He became pastor of the Presbyterian Church
in Long Lane, in 1730.--_Tempora mutantur_--Long Lane, and Jonny Moorhead,
and the little, old, visible temple, and Presbyterianism itself, are like
Rachel's first born--they are not. But in 1744, the good people built a
new church, for Jonny Moorhead; in due time, Long Lane became Federal
Street; and, Jonny's church bore the bell, which had rung so many peals,
and the gilded tell-tale, which, for so many years, had done obeisance to
all the winds of Heaven, upon the _old_ Brattle Street Church. These, upon
the demolition of that church, in 1774, were the gift of John Hancock.
Jonny Moorhead had little comfort from that bell, for he died December 3,
1774, and could he have lived to see that Presbyterian weathercock go
round, in after-times, it would have broken the tough, old strings of
Jonny Moorhead's Irish heart.
About one hundred years ago, Jonny Moorhead, upon a drowsy summer
afternoon, gave out the one hundred and eighty-seventh psalm--the chief
minstrel, with infinite embarrassment, suggested, that there were not so
many in the _Book_--and tradition tells us, that Jonny replied--"_Weel,
then, sing as mony as there be_."
My recollection of this anecdote of Jonny Moorhead will be painfully
revived, when I send forth the one hundredth number of these dealings with
the dead. They have been prepared like patch-work, from such fragments, as
my common-place book supplied, and at such broken hours of more than
ordinary loneliness, as might otherwise have been snoozed, unconsciously
away. I had cast all that I had written into a particular drawer; and
great was my surprise, to find, that the hundredth was the last, and that,
with that number, I shall have sung--"_as mony as there be_."
One hundred--thought I--is an even number--few individuals care to survive
one hundred. When these dealings with the dead had reached the number of
four-score, I had serious misgivings, that their _strength_, to my weary
reader, might prove nothing better than _labor and sorrow_;
notwithstanding the occasional tokens of approbation, from some
exceedingly old-fashioned people, who were altogether behind the times.
Having attained this _point d'appui_, which appears well enough adapted
for the long home of an old sexton, it occurred to me, that I could not
possibly do a better thing, for myself, or a more acceptable thing for the
public, than to gather up my tools, as snugly as possible, and quietly
give up the ghost. But giving up the ghost, even in the sacristan sense of
that awful phrase, is not particularly agreeable, after all. If I look
upon each one of these hundred dealings, as a sepulchre of my own
digging--I cannot deny, that the employment of my spade has been a
particular solace to me. But there are other solaces--I know it--there are
an hundred according to the exiled bard of Sulmo--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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