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.ÿþupon forty-six different texts from twenty-three books of the Bible, ten inthe Old Testament and thirteen in the New.97 Funeral sermons figure promi-nently among the small batch of extant manuscript sermons of John Thomp-son of St.Mark s Parish.If his efforts were typical, those in the pews wereoffered no palliatives but heard somber discourses on sin and judgment, theright use of time, true repentance, and righteous living, a call to faithful atten-dance upon one s religious duties, and a vigorous affirmation of the promisedresurrection.98Funeral sermons focused attention not only upon the departed but alsoupon the parson.In his diary, George Washington noted: Went to Alexan-dria to Mr.Saml Johnsons Funeral Sermon. 99 Parsons thus had their ownbest interests in mind when they expended time and care in the preparationof these discourses.Notice was taken of the preacher, his pulpit skills, as wellas the form and content of his message as is apparent in the Virginia Gazette sreporting of particularly notable funerals.100Nevertheless, funeral sermons were not to everyone s taste; some amongthe gentry preferred the quiet dignity and anonymity of the burial service tothe eulogizing that could be an element in the sermon.101 Leroy Griffin madethis emphatic in his will:I desire that six of the neighboring gentlemen, my intimate acquain-tances, may convey me to the place appointed for my reception and theminister perform the burial service without sermon and for this serviceI give a mourning ring of 20 shillings value to the minister and each ofthe six gentlemen.[I ll] have no ceremonious pomp but a dinner pre-pared by the gentlemen and they to be entertained in the same manner asif myself was present, and I earnestly forbid that any expense be made asto mourning except for my wife because I look upon it as a needless andvery extraordinary charge in a large family.102Further complicating Anglican practices was the growing presence of thosewho were not Anglicans.The church exercised no comparable monopoly overburial as it did over marriage.Dissenting denominations at least those withlicensed clergy and authorized meetinghouses were free to bury their ownaccording to the rites and customs peculiar to each.Col.James Gordon, inrecording the death of his infant daughter Sally, noted: Our dear little Sallywas this evening about 5 o c.put into her grave, without the Church cere-103mony read over her, which I believed seemed to some very strange. Inunderscoring the exclusion of the Anglican burial service, Gordon used his.Rites of Passage 229 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |
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