SERMON ON STONES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16780, 8 July 1922, Page 15

SERMON ON STONES.

selected epitaphs. Epitaphs on stones seen in churchyards generally tell of the virtues of the departed, but by chance we often learn of the laults of the individual referred *°- A writer in the “ Newcastle Week1\ Chronicle” has supplied that journal with a few selected epitaphs taken irojn various churchyards This epitaph was placed to tlie memory ot a I parisli clerk and bellows maser, and was formerly in the old church of All Saints, Newcastlc-on-Tyne : Here lies Robert Wallas, The King of Good Fellows, Clerk, of All-Hallows, And maker, of Bellows. This epitaph is written to the memory of a man named Guy in the churchyard at Hughenden, Wycombe:— 3n coffin made without a nail, W ithout a shroud his limb to hide, For what pomp, or show avail, Or velvet pall, to swell the pride, Here lies John Guy beneath this sod, Who loved 1 1 is friends, and feared his God. The following lines are copied from a churchyard at Salisbury : I bowl’d, I struck, I caught. I stopp’d, Sure life’s a game, of cricket. I block'd with care, with caution popp’d, \et death has hit my wicket. In Micklehurst we find the following church inscription: Life is an Inn, where all men bait The waiter. Time, the Landlord Fate. Death is the score, by all men due, J ve paid my shot, and so must you.

At Market Weigh ton. Yorks, there is a, marble monument to a. man. named Bradley, known as the Yorkshire giant:— In memory of W illiam Bradley, Who died May 30, 1820, Aged 33 years. He measured Seven feet, 9 inches, And weighed Twenty-seven stones, At Eakring churchyard a stone is placed to the memory of H. Cartwright, gamekeeper to the J>uke of Kingston for fifty-four years : g’i n discharged, xny ball is gone, My powder’s spent, my work is done; Those panting deer I’ve left behind May now have time to gain their wind, M here I have oft times chased them ore I lie Burial Plains, but now no more In the churchyard at Upton-on-Severn on a stone erected to the memory of a publican, we read : Beneath this stone, in hope of Zion, Both lie- the landlord of the “ Lion ” ; His son keeps on the business still, Kesignd unto the Heavenly will. At Bury St Edmund’s wo come across a typographical epitaph. It reads as follows : Here lies the remains of L- Gedgc, Printer. Like a worn-out character, he has Returned to the Founder, hoping He will be re-cast, in a better land, And more perfect mould.