Monuments is the 23rd chapter of Charles Spurgeon's book, John Plowman's Talk. Monuments. Every man should leave a monument behind him in the recollection of his own life by his neighbors. There must be something very much amiss about a man who is not missed when he dies. A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts and not on marble. So live towards others that they will keep your memory green when the grass grows on your grave. Let us hope there will be something better to be said about us than of the man whose epitaph is, Here lies a man who did no good, and if he lived he never would. Where he's gone and how he fares, nobody knows and nobody cares. May our friends never remember us as great gourmandizers of meat and drink, like the glutton over whose grave is written. Gentle reader, gentle reader, look on the spot where I do lie. I always was a very good feeder, but now the worms do feed on I. As much as that might be said of a prized pig or a fat bullock, if it died of disease. Some men are nothing better than walking beer barrels while they live. When death staves in the cask, they deserve to rot out of notice. However, a plain-speaking tombstone is better than downright lying. To put flattery on a grave is like pouring melted butter down a stone sink. What queer tastes those must have who puff off the departed as if they wanted to blow the trumpet of the dead before the last angel makes his appearance. Here's an apple out of their basket. Here lies the body of Martha Gwynn. who was so very pure within, she cracked the outer shell of sin and hatched herself a cherubim. Where do they bury the bad people? Right and left in our churchyard, they seem all to have been the best of folks, a regular nest of saints, and some of them so precious good, it is no wonder they died. They were too fine to live in such a wicked world as this. Better give bread to the poor than stones to the dead. Better kind words to the living than fine speeches over the grave. Some of the fulsome stuff on monuments is enough to make a dead man blush. What heaps of marble are stuck over many big people's tombs? Half enough to build a house with. What a lift they will have at the resurrection! It makes me feel as if I could not get my breath to think of all those stones being heaped on my bones. Not that there's any fear of it. Let the earth which I have turned over so often lie light upon my corpse when it has turned over me. Let John Plowman be buried somewhere under the bows of a spreading beach, with a green grass mound above him, out of which primroses and daisies peep in their season. A quiet shady spot, where the leaves fall, and the robins play, and the dewdrops gleam in the sunshine. Let the wind blow fresh and free over my grave, and if there must be a line about me, let it be. Here lies the body of John Plowman, waiting for the appearing of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I often heard tell of patients on a monument, but I have never seen it sitting there when I have gone through church yards. I have a good many times seen stupidity on a monument, and I have wondered why the parson, or the churchwarden, or the beadle, or whoever else has the ruling of things, let people cut such rubbish on the stones. Why, a Gloucestershire man told me that at Dimmock Graveyard there's a writing like this. Two sweeter babes you ne'er did see, Than God amity gave to we. But they were o'ertaken, we agger fits, And here they lies, as dead as knits. I've read pretty near enough silly things myself In our surrey-bearing grounds to fill a book. Better leave the grave alone Than set up a monument to your own ignorance. Of all places for jokes and fun, The queerest are tombstones. Yet many a time gravestones have had such oddities carved upon them that one is led to think, the nearer the church the further from common decency. This is a cruel verse, but I dare say a true one. Here lies, returned to clay, Miss Arabella Young, who on the first of May began to hold her tongue. This is not much better. John Adam lies here of the parish Southwell, a carrier who carried his can to his mouth well. He carried so much, and he carried so fast. He could carry no more, so was carried at last. For the liquor he drunk, being too much for one, he could not carry off, so he's now carry-on. Why could not these people poke their fun somewhere else? A man's wit must be nearly dead when he can find no place for it but the grave. The body of the raggedest beggar is too sacred a thing to crack jokes upon. What a queer fish must Roger Martin have been, who lived in Walworth and put on his wife's tomb! Here lies the wife of Roger Martin. She was a good wife to Roger, that's certain. And whoever was the foolish creature at Ockham, one of the prettiest spots in these parts, who wrote these outrageous lines? The Lord saw good I was topping off wood, and down fell from the tree. I met with a check, and broke my blessed neck, and so death topped off me. There, that's enough, and quite as good as a feast. Here's proof positive that some fools are left alive to write on the monuments of those who are buried. Well, may there be ghosts about. No wonder the sleepers get out of bed when they are so badly tucked in. I say let us have a law to let nobody put nonsense over the dead unless he likes to take out a certificate to be an ass, just like the license to shoot partridges and pheasants. At the same time, let all puffery be saved for draper shops and quack dockers and none be allowed at the grave. I say, as our minister does, let no proud stone with sculptured virtues rise to mark the spot wherein a sinner lies. Or, if some boast must deck the sinner's grave, boast of his love who died lost then to save. One more sorry rhyme and John Plowman leaves the churchyard to go about his work and turn up other sods. It is in St. Saviour's Southwark, and is, I think, a rare good one. Like to the damask rose you see, or like the blossom on the tree, or like the dainty flower of May, or like the morning of the day. Or like the sun, or like the shade, Or like the gourd which Jonah had. Even so is man whose thread is spun, Drawn out and cut, and so is done. The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, The flower fades, the morning hasteth, The sun sets, the shadow flies, The gourd consumes, and man he dies. I have heard tell of a man who did not know a great A from a bull's foot, and I know a good many who certainly could not tell what a great A or a little a either may mean. But some of these people are not the most ignorant in the world for all that. For instance, they know a cow's head from its tail, and one of the election gentlemen said lately that the candidate from London did not know that. They know that turnips don't grow on trees, and they can tell a mangled worzel from a beetroot and a rabbit from a hare. And there are fine folk who play on pianos who hardly know as much as that. If they cannot read, they can plow, and mow, and reap, and sow, and bring up seven children on ten shillings a week. and yet pay their way, and there's a sight of people who are much too ignorant to do that. Ignorance of spelling books is very bad, but ignorance of hard work is worse. Wisdom does not always speak Latin. People laugh at smockfrocks, and indeed they are about as ugly garments as could well be contrived. But some who wear them are not half such fools as people take them for. If no ignorant people ate bread, but those who wear hobnail shoes, corn would be a fine deal cheaper. Wisdom in a poor man is like a diamond set in lead, for none but good judges can discover its value. Wisdom walks often in patched clothes, and then folks do not admire her. But I say, never mind the coat, give me the man. Shells are nothing, the kernel is everything. You need not go to Pyrebrite to find ignoramuses. There are heaps of them near St. Paul's. I would have everybody able to read and write and cipher. Indeed, I don't think a man can know too much. But mark you, the knowing of these things is not education. And there are millions of your reading and writing people who are as ignorant as neighbor Norton's calf that did not know its own mother. This is as plain as the nose on your face, if you only think a little. To know how to read and write is like having tools to work. But if you don't use these tools, and your eyes and your ears too, you will be none the better off. Everybody should know what most concerns him and makes him most useful. If cats can catch mice and hens can lay eggs, they know the things which most suits what they were made for. It is little use for a horse to know how to fly. It will do well enough if it can trot. A man on a farm ought to learn all that belongs to farming. A blacksmith should study a horse's foot. A dairymaid should be well up in skimming the milk and making the butter. And a laborer's wife should be a good scholar in the sciences of boiling and baking, washing and mending. And John Plowman ventures to say that those men and women who have not learned the duties of their callings are very ignorant people, even if they can tell the Greek name for a crocodile or write a poem on a black beetle. That is too often very true. Jack has been to school to learn to be a fool. When a man falls into the water, to know how to swim will be of more use to him than all his mathematics, and yet how very few boys learn swimming. Girls are taught dancing and French when stitching and English would be a hundred percent more used to them. When men have to earn their livings in these hard times, a good trade and industrious habits will serve their turn a world better than all the classics in Cambridge and Oxford. But who nowadays advocates practical training at our schools? Schoolmasters would go into fits if they were asked to teach poor people's boys to hoe potatoes and plant cauliflowers. And yet school boards would be doing a power of good if they did something of the sort. If you want a dog to be a pointer or a setter, you train him accordingly. Why ever don't they do the same with men? It ought to be every man for his business and every man master of his business. Let Jack and Tom learn geography by all means, but don't forget to teach them how to black their own boots and put a button onto their own trousers. And as for Jane and Sally, let them sing and play the music if they like, but not till they can darn a stocking and make a shirt. When they mend up that education act, I hope they will put in a clause to teach children practical common sense home duties, as well as the three R's. But there, what's the use of talking this way? For if children are to learn common sense, where are we to get the teachers? Very few people have any of it to spare. and those who have are never likely to take to school-keeping. Lots of girls learn nothing except the folder-alls, which I think they call accomplishments. There's poor gent with six girls and about 50 pounds a year to keep his family on, and yet not one of them can do a hand's turn, because their mother would go into fits lest Miss Sophia Elfrida should have chapped hands through washing the family linen. or lest Alexandra Theodora should spoil her complexion in picking a few gooseberries for a pudding. It's enough to make a cat laugh to hear poor things talk about fashion and etiquette when they are not half as well off as the Hitler's daughters down the lane, who earned their own living and are laying money by against the time when some young farmer will pick them up. Trust me, he who marries these hidey-tidey young ladies will have as bad a bargain as if he married a wax doll. How the fat would be in the fire if Mrs. Gent heard me say it, but I do say it for all that. She and her girls are ignorant, very ignorant, because they do not know what would be of most service to them. Every sprat nowadays calls itself a herring. Every donkey thinks itself fit to be one of the queen's horses. Every candle reckons itself the sun. But when a man with his best coat on, and a paper collar, a glass in his eye, a brass chain on his waistcoat, a cane in his hand, an emptiness in his head, fancies that people cannot see through his swaggers and brags, he must be ignorant, very ignorant, for he does not know himself. Flats, dressed up to the top of the fashion, think themselves somebodies, but nobody else does. Dancing masters and tailors may rig up a fop, but they cannot make a nothing into a man. You may color a millstone as much as you like, but you cannot improve it into a cheese. Round our part we have a lot of poets, at least a set of very ignorant people who think they are. And these folks worry me more than a little because I have written a book, and therefore ought to listen to their rigmaroles. Nonsense is nonsense, whether it rhymes or not, just as bad half-pennies are good for nothing, whether they jingle or lie quiet. "'Here, John,' said a man to me, "'I want to read you some of my verses.' "'No, thank you,' said I. "'I don't feel in a political frame of mind today. Mark you, I shan't feel a bit more so tomorrow. What right has that fellow to shoot his rubbish at my door? I have enough of my own. I don't intend to have my ears stuffed up with cobbler's wax or cobbled verses. I had a double dose the other morning from two of our great village poets, and I must confess it was rather better than most of the rhymes that I meet with in books." Chubbin said, "'It is a sin to steal a pin,' and then Padley topped it up by adding, "'It is a greater to steal a tater.'" Now there's rhyme and reason for you, as the sexton said when he wrote three lines for the poor man's tombstone. Here I lie, killed by a sky, rocket in my eye. When tradesmen put their earnings into companies and expect to see it again, when they lend money at outrageous interest and think to make their fortunes by it, they must be ignorant, very ignorant. as well hang a wooden kettle over a fire to boil the water for tea, or sow beans in a river and look for a fine crop. When men believe in lawyers and moneylenders, whether Jews or Gentiles, and borrow money, and speculate, and think themselves lucky fellows, they are shamefully ignorant. The very gander on the common would not make such a stupid of himself, for he knows when anyone tries to pluck him, and won't lose his feathers and pride himself in the operation. The man who spends his money with the public, and thinks that the landlord's bows and how-do-you-do, my good fellow, mean true respect, is a perfect natural. For with them it is, if you have money, take a seat. If you have none, take to your feet. The fox admires the cheese. If it were not for that, he would not care a rap for the raven. The bait is not put into the trap to feed the mouse, but to catch him. We don't light a fire for the herring's comfort, but to roast him for our own eating. Men do not keep pothouses for the laborer's good. If they do, they certainly miss their aim. Why, then, should people drink for the good of the house? If I spend money for the good of any house, let it be my own and not the landlord's. It's a bad well into which you must put water, and a beer house is a bad friend, because it takes your all and leaves you nothing but heel taps and headaches. He who calls those his friends, who let him sit and drink by the hour together, is ignorant, very ignorant. Why, red lions and tigers and eagles and vultures are all creatures of prey, and none but fools put themselves within the power of their jaws and talons. He who believes that either Whigs or Tories will let us off with like taxes must have been born on the day after the last of March. And he who imagines that parish boards and vestries will ever be free from jobbery must have been educated in an idiot asylum. He who believes in promises made at elections has long ears and may try to eat thistles. Mr. Plausible has been around asking all the working men for their votes, and he will do all sorts of good things for them. Will he? Yes, the day after tomorrow, a little later than never. Poor men who expect the friend of the working man to do anything for them must be ignorant, very ignorant. When they get their seats, of course, they cannot stand up for their principles except when it is to their own interest to do so. to lend umbrellas and look to have them sent home, to do a man a good turn and expect another from him when you want it, to dream of stopping some women's tongues, to try to please everybody, to hope to hear gossips speak well of you, or to reckon upon getting the truth of a story from common report are all evidence of great ignorance. Those who know the world best trust it least. Those who trust it at all are not wise. as well trust a horse's heel or a dog's tooth. Trusting to others ruins many. He who leaves his business to bailiffs and servants, and believes it will be well done, must be ignorant, very ignorant. The mouse knows when the cat is out of the house, and servants know when the master is away. No sooner is the eye of the master gone than the hand of the workman slackens, at least that is so nine times out of ten. I'll go myself and I'll see to it, are two good servants on a farm. Those who lie in bed and bolster themselves up with the notion that their trade will carry on itself are ignorant, very ignorant. Such as drink and live riotously and wonder why their faces are so blotchy and their pockets so bare would leave off wondering if they had two grains of wisdom. Those who go to the public house for happiness climb a tree to find fish. We might put all their wit in an eggshell, or they would never be such dupes as to hunt after comfort, where it is no more to be found than a cow in a crow's nest. But alas, good-for-nothings are common as mice in a wheat-rick. I only wish we could pack them off to lover-land, where they have half a crown a day for sleeping. If someone could let loose stellos see the sure result of ill-living, perhaps they might reform. And yet I don't know, for they do see it, and yet go on all the same, like a moth that burns its wings in the flame, and yet dashes into the candle again. Certainly for loitering Lushingtons, to expect to thrive by keeping their hands in their pockets, or their noses in pewter pots, proves them to be ignorant, very ignorant. When I see a young lady with a flower garden on her roof, and draper's shops on her body, tossing her head about as if she thought everybody was charmed with her. I am sure she must be ignorant, very ignorant. Sensible men don't marry a wardrobe or a bonnet box. They want a woman of sense. And women of that kind always dress sensibly and not gaudily. To my mind, those who sneer at religion and set themselves up to be too knowing to believe in the Bible are shallow fellows. They generally use big words and bluster a great deal, but if they fancy they can overturn the faith of thinking people. To have tried and proved the power of the grace of God, they must be ignorant, very ignorant. He who looks at the sunrise and the sunset and does not see the footprints of God must be inwardly blinder than a mole, and only fit to live underground. God seems to talk to me in every primrose and daisy, to smile upon me from every star, to whisper to me in every breath of morning air, and to call aloud to me in every storm. It is strange that so many educated gentlemen see God nowhere, while John the plowman feels Him everywhere. John has no wish to change places for the sense of God's presence in his comfort and joy. They say that man is the God of the dog. Those men must be worse than dogs who will not listen to the voice of God, for a dog obeys its master's whistle. They call themselves philosophers, don't they? Their proper name is fools, for the fool hath said in his heart there is no God. The sheep know when rain is coming, the swallows foresee the winter, and even the pigs, they say, can see the wind. How much worse than a brute must he be, who lives where God is everywhere present, and yet sees him not? Thus it is very clear that a man may be a great hand at learning, and yet be ignorant, very ignorant. Fini. This concludes the reading of Charles Spurgeon's book, John Plowman's Talk.