Preparing for Publication, CHRISTIAN EPITAPHS; Or, Select Passages from English Hymnology altered and adapted for Monumental Inscriptions. LONDON: WILSON AND OGILVY, 57, SKINNER STREET, Preface. THE design of this little book is to furnish a selection of passages from the Holy Scriptures, suitable for Christian Epitaphs; in the hope that it may tend to a more judicious choice of Monumental Inscriptions. The solemn thoughts that the tomb naturally inspires are too frequently disturbed, if not dispelled, by doggrel verses, or ostentatious inscriptions, that offend alike against good taste and reverential feeling. The utterance that sorrowing relatives and friends give to their grief and fondness is so rarely consonant with propriety, that silence were often more expressive and decorous : but a text from Scripture cannot fail of being consolatory to the feelings of mourners and bene B 2 |