A Landscape of Empathy
By Robin Hazard Ray Docent
W hen I lead tours at Mount Auburn , I very often begin by explaining what the Cemetery is not . Showing photos from traditional New England burial grounds , treeless with monochrome slate markers , I will often quote from an inscription that typifies the older approach to mortality and therefore to cemeteries before Mount Auburn was founded in 1831 . Dedicated to the memory of one John Hancock , who died at the age of 22 in September 1796 , the inscription reads :
My youthful mates both small and great , Come here and you may see An awful sight , which is a type Of which you soon must be .
In the Puritan church that was the progenitor of the Congregational and Unitarian churches of today , death was the point at which your soul was to be weighed and found either worthy of Heaven or fated for Hell . As cultural historian Marilyn Yalom writes in her book The American Resting Place ( 2008 ), the thin gray stones of the old burial grounds often bore grim imagery : “ Death ’ s-heads , scythes , shovels , hourglasses , and coffins were fearful symbols of human mortality and decay . They served as cautionary illustrations for the living , who were instructed to think on their own death with dread and trembling .” Their doleful epitaphs , such as the one quoted above , combine with these images to instil sadness and fear – fear of death itself and fear for one ’ s soul – in those who visit .
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