Monuments
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People
" Some men are nothing better than walking beer barrels while they
live." — Page 214.
EVERY man should leave a monument
behind him in the recollection of his
own life by his neighbors. There must be
something very much amiss about a man
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214 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
who is not missed when he dies. A good
character is the best tombstone. Those
who loved you, and were helped by you,
will remember you when forget-me-nots are
withered. Carve your name on hearts, and
not on marble. So live towards others that
they will keep your memory green when
the grass grows on your grave. Let us
hope there will be something better to be
said about us than of the man whose epitaph
is —
"Here lies a man who did no good,
And if he'd lived he never would;
Where he's gone, and how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares."
May our friends never remember us as great
gormandizers of meat and drink, like the
glutton over whose grave is written —
" Gentle reader, gentle reader,
Look on the spot where I do lie,
I always was a very good feeder,
But now the worms do feed on I."
As much as that might be said of a prize
pig, or a fat bullock, if it died of disease.
Some men are nothing better than walking
beer barrels while they live ; when death
MONUMENTS. 215
staves in the cask, they deserve to rot out
of notice.
However, a plain-speaking tombstone is
better than downright lying. To put flattery
on a grave is like pouring melted butter
down a stone sink. What queer tastes
those must have who puff off the departed,
as if they wanted to blow the trumpet of
the dead before the last angel makes his
appearance ! Here's an apple out of their
basket —
" Here lies the body of Martha Gwyn,
Who was so very pure within ;
She crack' d the outer shell of sin,
And hatch' d herself a cherubim.' '
Where do they bury the bad people?
Right and left in our churchyard, they seem
all to have been the best of folks, a regular
nest of saints ; and some of them so precious
good, it is no wonder they died — they were
too fine to live in such a wicked world as
this. Better give bread to the poor than
stones to the dead. Better kind words to
the living than fine speeches over the grave.
Some of the fulsome stuff on monuments is
enough to make a dead man blush.
216 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
What heaps of marble are stuck over
many big people's tombs ! Half enough to
build a house with ! What a lift they will
have at the resurrection ! It makes me feel
as if I could not get my breath to think of
all those stones being heaped on my bones ;
not that there's any fear of it. Let the
earth which I have turned over so often lie
light upon my corpse when it is turned over
me. Let John Ploughman be buried some-
where under the boughs of a spreading
beech, with a green grass mound above
him, out of which primroses and daisies
peep in their season : a quiet shady spot
where the leaves fall, and the robins play,
and the dewdrops gleam in the sunshine.
Let the wind blow fresh and free over my
grave, and if there must be a line about me,
let it be—
HERE LIES THE BODY OF
JOHN PLOUGHMAN,
waiting for the appearing of his
Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ.
IVe often heard tell of patience on a monu-
MONUMENTS. 217
ment, but I have never seen it sitting there
when I have gone through churchyards;
I have a good many times seen stupidity on
a monument, and I have wondered why the
parson, or the churchwarden, or the beadle,
or whoever else has the ruling of things,
let people cut such rubbish on the stones.
Why, a Glos'tershire man told me that at
Dymock graveyard there's a writing like
this—
" Too sweetur babes you nare did see
Than God amity gave to wee ;
But they wur ortaken wee agur fits,
And hear they lys has dead as nits."
IVe read pretty near enough silly things
myself in our Surrey burying-grounds to
fill a book. Better leave the grave alone
than set up a monument to your own igno-
rance.
Of all places for jokes and fun the queerest
are tombstones, yet many a time gravestones
have had such oddities carved upon them
that one is led to think, the nearer the church
the further from common decency. This is
a cruel verse, but I dare say a true one :
218 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
" Here lies, return' d to clay,
Miss Arabella Young,
Who on the first of May
Began to hold her tongue."
This is not much better :
" John Adams lies here, of the parish Southwell,
A carrier who carried his can to his mouth well ;
He carried so much, and he carried so fast,
He could carry no more, so was carried at last;
For the liquor he drunk being too much for one,
He could not carry off, so he's now carri-on"
Why could not these people poke their fun
somewhere else ? A man's wit must be
nearly dead when he can find no place for it
but the grave. The body of the raggedest
beggar is too sacred a thing to crack jokes
upon. What a queer fish must Roger
Martin have been, who lived in Walworth,
and put on his wife's tomb —
" Here lies the wife of Roger Martin,
She was a good wife to Roger — that's sartain."
And whoever was the foolish creature at
Ockham, one of the prettiest spots in these
parts, who wrote these outrageous lines ?
MONUMENTS. 219
u The Lord saw good, I was topping off wood,
And down fell from the tree ;
I met with a check, and I broke my blessed neck,
And so death topped off me/'
There, that's enough, and quite as good
as a feast. Here's proof positive that some
fools are left alive to write on the monu-
ments of those who are buried. Well may
there be ghosts about. No wonder the
sleepers get out of bed when they are so
badly tucked in. I say let us have a lawT to
let nobody put nonsense over the dead un-
less he likes to take out a certificate to be
an ass, just like the license to shoot patridges
and pheasants. At the same time, let all
puffery be saved for drapers' shops and
quack doctors, and none be allowed at the
grave. I say as our minister does —
" Let no proud stone with sculptur'd virtues rise,
To mark the spot wherein a sinner lies,
Or if some boast must deck the sinner's grave,
Boast of His love who died lost man to save."
One more Surrey rhyme, and John
Ploughman leaves the churchyard to go
about his work, and turn up other sods.
220 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
It is in St. Saviour's, Southwark, and is, I
think, a rare good one.
" Like to the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flow'r of May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonah had ;
Even so is man, whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done :
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,
The gourd consumes, and man he dies."