Sunday, September 28, 2008

101 Ways, Part 43: Expired in the Faith of Christ

For a brief intro to the "101 Ways to Say 'Died'" series, click here.
In Memory of
MARGARETT CUMINGS
Consort to
the Revd. HENRY CUMINGS
who expired in the faith of Christ
June 2d. 1790
In the 54th Year
Of Her age
This corruptible must put on incorruption
and this mortal must put on immortality.


The professor who introduced me to material culture studies had a theory about this stone: he thought that, perhaps, the text on the scroll is meant to be read from inside the stone/grave. I don't know if that's right, but, frankly, I don't have any better guesses.

The verse is 1 Corinthians 15:53. I checked to see if it is KJV or Geneva, but this particular verse is identical in both.

1 comment:

Robert J. said...

This is interesting, because I thought I had seen that design the other way around, and a check shows that it's so. In Tashjian I find an illustration (Fig. 41) of the 1765 Thomas Nichols stone in Wakefield with the identical design, but flipped left-to-right, so the text reads correctly as "Arise ye dead."

25 years apart? Same carver? Don't know, but would like to.