‘His soul is with the saints, I trust’

     

The Knight’s Tomb
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O’Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?—
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone,—and the birch in its stead is grown.—
The Knight’s bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;—
His soul is with the saints, I trust.

You never want to associate a trip to the Philadelphia Masonic Temple with a sad memory, but it was there last evening, in historic Lodge No. 2, meeting in Egyptian Hall, where we said our goodbyes to our friend and brother. The Pennsylvania Masonic ritual, unsurprisingly, is very effective in this regard.

This panel, on the southeast wall of Egyptian Hall, of course is highly appropriate for the funerary service. Here we see Anubis embalming Osiris. The ankh, symbolizing eternal life, would be pressed to the lips of the deceased to impart the Breath of Life needed in the afterlife.