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Many of these examples will forcibly shew into what lengths bad taste, or a love for absurdities, may lead people who have nothing better to guide them. And yet, while all these strange Epitaphs are introduced, "the law," says the Dean of Salisbury, in a Charge to the clergy of the Archdeaconry of Sarum, (1844,) "is explicit, that no Epitaphs can be placed either within churches or burial-grounds, but by the consent of the clergyman." All should be "simple, monitory, scriptrual." Were these directions attended to, how different would be the aspect of our churchyards,—how contrary the impression they would convey!

With regard to the emblems to be found upon tombstones, we cannot do better than examine the rules which were observed by the early Christians; with regard to which there is the following passage in Maitland's "Church in the Catacombs:"—

"On stones innumerable appears the Good Shepherd, bearing on His shoulders the recovered sheep, by which many an illiterate believer expressed his sense of personal salvation. One, according to his Epitaph, sleeps in Christ; another is buried with a hope that she may live in the Lord Jesus; but most of all, the Cross in its simplest form is employed to testify the faith of the deceased: and whatever ignorance may have prevailed regarding the letter of Holy Writ, or the more mysterious doctrines contained