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GOING INTO MOURNING.
Mrs. Susan King has written a paper for the
Friends' Quarterly Brummel, entitled " A Plea
with Ladies against Going into Mourning," in
which the writer regards the practice of putting
on a different dress from that previously sworn,
because of the removal of friends by death, in
one for which little can be said, and against
which much may be advanced Mrs King
says -
To any thoughtful mind the plea sometimes
put forward, that in the intensity of grief it is
a relief to have the attention turned to the preparation
of a total change of dress, must bear
on the surface its own stamp of utter non appreciation
of the Heaven intended lessons that grief
should teach Those lessons, of the uncertainty
of life, of the solemnity of death, and of the
nearness of the unseen world (which, perhaps,
never seems so near to us as when our best be
loved bare just gone hence, and are hidden from
our sight behind the veil'), is there no fear
lest, whilst we busy ourselves with the usual
arrangements for an altered outward appearance,
such lessons which it was intended we should
learn in the season of bereavement should be
neglected, and we lose the spiritual strength
and benefit we might have e gained " And, however
sore one's own heart may be, is there no
cause for rejoicing that the weary frame we
may be c watched and tended most loa kingly
eye, and many a time amidst its agonies prayed
that release might be sent, and the end come
each quickly-is for ever at rest, that the
perhaps beclouded spirit is at last shining in
the clear light of God s immediate presence-is
there no cause for unselfish rejoicing in this
Instead of troubling ourselves about black
dresses in the interval between the death and
burial of a dear relative when the time of
inevitable reaction comes she thinks the "quiet,
prayerful rest of mind and body those enter
aening days would afford is denied to the
followers of a custom more honoured in the
breach than in the observance, the former
should be a better preparation of heart to meet
the terrible reaction " The effect of being
surrounded by funereal black is painful to the
feelings, and probably physically injurious (if
not directly. so, certainly it 13 through its effect
upon the spirits to look constantly upon the dull
unrelieved black of deep mourning That over-
sensitive child felt this who entreated her
mother to let her put on a coloured dress before
the usual time for wearing black had elapsed
she should not think and the less of her dead
sister on that account I What real moon nor is
there who does not know only too well how to
re-echo the words
' But I have that within which passeth show ;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe ''
" There is one thing often urged in favour of
this practice to which it is supposed considerable
weight attaches, a iz that to wear the
badge of bread empty spaces you painful ques-
tionings But there is not much force even in
that The acquaintance wanting in tact, and
refinement, and instinctive sympathy, will
stumble rudely upon your grief with the not
unkindly-meant but ill-timed allusion thereto and
the friend who has given you the heartfelt
sympathy and thoughtful remembrance you
alone value will not often be unmindful of what
has befallen you, though there be no change
from your customary garb But here a word must
be said in passing, in favour of an habitual neat
ness and simplicity of attire for there is a
manifest incongruity between the showy dress, j
whose wearer must expect to receive e the notice
she apparently courts, and the deep grief which
would seek shelter from the observation of the a
multitude " ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 1
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