Page:Beauty for Ashes.djvu/13



was once the custom, among Jewish women, to cast ashes upon their heads in seasons of mourning, by way of expressing their sorrow and grief; and on all joyous and festive occasions they wore, as an ornament of the head, an elegant tiara, or diadem, often set with costly pearls. This diadem or head-dress, called in our English version of the Jewish Scriptures "," was indicative of the inward joy and gladness of the wearer. It denoted a state the opposite of mourning. It, therefore, became customary among the Jews, when they wished to convey the idea that a state of sorrow and mourning had been succeeded by one of gladness and rejoicing, to say that the diadem had taken the place of the ashes. Hence the origin and import of that form of expression in Isaiah, "," which we have chosen as an appropriate title to the following treatise: Appropriate—because the state of mind in which the Old doctrine concerning the condition of little children after death seems to have originated, is one of such apparent sadness and gloom, as is fitly symbolized by cast upon the head; while the beau-