Annie Laurie

San Francisco Examiner/September 16, 1901

“GEORGE FROST, an aged spiritualist of Philadelphia, wrote out his own funeral sermon. He called a friend to his house and made her promise that she would read the sermon at his funeral. She promised, and last week Frost died, and his own words were read over his coffin. The sermon is said to have been written in beautiful English and to show the mind of the man who studied and thought much.” Extract from daily newspaper.

How interesting!

Now, I don’t know Mr. Frost, nor have I ever met any of his kith and kin.

Of his kind I have known full and many.

Dear me, don’t we all get chance enough to preach while we are living but we must rise in our grave clothes and address the startled congregation! Now what on earth could Mr. Frost have had to say dead that he couldn’t have said with much better grace living?

Who wants to go to a funeral and listen to the dear departed talking about himself and telling what a good neighbor and a kind father and devoted husband he was?

A funeral is, or ought to be, a simple expression of love and respect for the dead, nothing more. Long ceremonies and pompous performances are out of place in the presence of the cold dignity of death.

Who is there who can write or say anything which will preach as powerful a sermon as will the sight of the empty clay which once held a loved and loving human soul?

Whatever can be said of honest tribute to the dead is right. It will comfort the living to hear it.

There is no special need of panegyrics. No one believes in them, and, to tell the truth, they’re really going out of fashion. Thanks be to the modern common sense.

But any word of kind appreciation falls gratefully upon the ears of those who sit and mourn.

Long homilies on the vanity of life do not.

Pray, my good preacher, what can you say to paint still whiter the white, cold cheeks of death?

Stop your moralizing. There is a greater Preacher than you, and He has written His sermon on the sunken cheeks in the coffin before your pulpit.

The world is not only growing better, but it is growing more sensible every day.

Time was, and not so long ago either, when a death in the family meant a period of depressing gloom and mourning.

It was the proper thing to be stricken. If you were not stricken you must pretend to be.

You must sit up nights making mourning clothes, and you must call the laughing children in from their play to drape them in black. All amusement, all effort to divert the mind, was tabooed.

Gloom was the thing, the proper thing. If you really felt cheerful you had to go up in the attic and pin a blanket up to the window for fear someone would see you smiling.

But all that has changed. We of the modern world try to have some little consideration for the living. We hide our sorrow and do our bravest to choke down our tears. We seek not forgetfulness, but self-control.

Self-indulgent grief is the most selfish thing in the world. Shake it off, you who are mourning to-day. When you are first in deep trouble it is a good thing to face it and have it out.

Don’t try to make yourself forget at first; you cannot do it. You will only strain your nerves beyond repair if you try.

Look your grief fairly in the face, take it by the hand and say, “Come, friend, we will walk together, you and I.” Make up your mind to your misery.

You must have some kind of an outlet at first. Do not listen to those who try to persuade you to keep from thinking. Think, go away by yourself and think it out once and for all.

Then go back into the world with the new dignity and the new poise of your sorrow upon you.

Busy yourself with making someone else just a little happier because you are alive.

Give up the idea of seeking for happiness. Happiness can run faster than you can ever hope to do—when you are chasing it.

Turn your back resolutely upon it, and it will seek you out; and follow you to the ends of the earth.

Grasp the nettle of your grief firmly in your firm hand.

It will not sting you then.

But the parade of sorrow, the vulgar trappings and suits of woe, pray you, take them off, take them off.

The widow’s veil shuts out the sun for every human being who has to look at It. Those bands of crepe, do they help you to love the one who is gone?

If they do not, take them off; they do but cast a gloom on everyone who sees them.

When I die I hope the few friends who love me will take the money that a foolish custom has put into mourning weeds and make some little child happy for one brief day. Try it when some friend of yours dies.

Are you sad and heavy-hearted today? Take a little extra change, go out and find a youngster or two and give them one day of solid joy; they’ll remember it as long as they live.

What is it you remember best in all your long life? The gay yachting party where you were so dreadfully bored and where you spent such a lot of money? The trip to Monte Carlo that got into the papers and set all your friends to talking about you?

That series of coaching trips that made you the envy of all your acquaintances?

Not at all, and not in the least at all. The day you spent at the circus. the first circus you ever saw—the afternoon that your uncle came home from somewhere and came to the school house and took you out for one whole golden afternoon and bought you ice cream and a big, fat, yellow lemon with a stick of striped candy to suck the lemon juice through.

Why, one day such as that will last a happy youngster as long as he lives.

Give it to him, give it this very day; look at the world through his bright eyes for one little twelve hours, and, believe me, the bitterest grief that ever wrung a human heart will lose its deadliest sting before the sun goes down.