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A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 by Thomas Clarkson
page 30 of 278 (10%)

But the Quakers have an objection to the use of tomb-stones and
monumental inscriptions, for other reasons. For, where pillars of
marble, abounding with panegyric, and decorated in a splendid manner,
are erected to the ashes of dead men, there is a danger, lest, by making
too much of these, a superstitious awe should be produced, and a
superstitious veneration should attach to them. The early Christians, by
making too much of the relics of their saints or pious men, fell into
such errors.

The Quakers believe, again, that if they were to allow the custom of
these outward monuments to obtain among them, they might be often led,
as the world is, and by the same causes, to a deviation from the truth;
for it is in human nature to praise those whom we love, but more
particularly when we have lost them. Hence, we find often such
extravagant encomiums upon the dead, that if it were possible for these
to be made acquainted with them, they would show their disapprobation of
such records. Hence we find also, that "as false as an epitaph," has
become a proverbial expression.

But even in the case where nothing more is said upon the tomb-stone than
what Moses said of Seth, and of Enos, and of Cainan, and others, when he
reckoned up the genealogy of Adam, namely, that "they lived and that
they died," the Quakers do not approve of such memorials. For these
convey no merit of the deceased, by which his example should be
followed. They convey no lesson of morality: and in general they are not
particularly useful. They may serve perhaps to point out to surviving
relations, the place where the body of the deceased was buried, so that
they may know where to mark out the line for their own graves. But as
the Quakers in general have overcome the prejudice of "sleeping with
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