As morbid as it may seem, a visit to the cemetary can be sobering and quite
thought-provoking. The tombstone inscriptions of many years ago convey
truth, humor, cynicism and hope. Some have been very creative in the
epitaph department. For example:
A New Hampshire farmer had this inscribed:
The hand I cleared is now my grave,
Think well, my friends, how you behave.
One tombstone in Boston reads:
Killed by the kick of a horse,
Gone to a better world, of course.
In Dodge City, Kansas:
Here lays Butch, we planted him raw,
He was quick on the trigger, but slow on the draw.
And found in the gold-mining camp of Leadville, Colorado:
Amos Rutledge hanged himself.
We would have done it for him.
And:
Underneath this stone in eternal rest,
Sleeps the wildest one of the wayward West.
He was a gambler and sport and cowboy, too.
And he led the pace in an outlaw crew.
He was sure on the trigger and staid to the end,
But he was never known to quit on a friend.
In the relations of death, all men are alike,
But in life there was only one George W. Pike.
Paul, in consideration of his life wrote a fitting epitaph in 2 Timothy
4:6-7: "Now the time has come for me to die. My life is like a drink
offering being poured out on the altar. I have fought well. I have
finished the race, and I have been faithful."
When your epitaph is written, will it say you have been faithful to God??
