SECT. III.

_They discard also mourning garments--These are only emblems of
sorrow--and often make men pretend to be what they are not--This
contrary to Christianity--Thus they may become little better than
disguised pomp, or fashionable forms--This instanced in the changes and
duration of common mourning--and in the custom also of court-mourning
--Ramifications of the latter._


As the Quakers neither allow of the tomb-stones, nor the monumental
inscriptions, so they do not allow of the mourning garments of the
world.

They believe there can be no true sorrow but in the heart, and that
there can be no other true outward way of showing it than by fulfilling
the desires, and by imitating the best actions, of those whom men have
lost and loved. "The mourning, says William Penn, which it is fit for a
Christian to have on the departure of beloved relations and friends,
should be worn in the mind, which is only sensible of the loss. And the
love which men have had to these, and their remembrance of them, should
be outwardly expressed by a respect to their advice, and care of those
they have left behind them, and their love of that which they loved."

But mourning garments, the Quakers contend, are only emblems of sorrow.
They will therefore frequently be used, where no sorrow is. Many persons
follow their deceased relatives to the grave, whose death, in point of
gain, is a matter of real joy; witness young spendthrifts, who have been
raising sum after sum on expectation, and calculating with voracious