I have clipped from a newspaper the epitaph which is said to be inscribed on Professor Huxley's tomb. It will be remembered that he was the originator of the title "Agnostic." Having been called an infidel by Professor Wace, he objected to the appellation, not so much because it was untruthful, as because, in the estimation of many, it is a term of reproach. He preferred, as representing his theological position more exactly, the title "Agnostic," or one who does not know whether or not there is a God. He died as he lived, and on the tombstone some friend inscribed these lines:

      This epitaph, like many others which we may read in the graveyard, belies the life of the man to whom it refers. What right had its author to use the name of [137] God here, when he who lies beneath never recognized a God? What right had he to steal a passage of Scripture which speaks of God as giving his beloved sleep, and apply it to a man who professed not to know God? And what sense is there in affirming rest and sleep of a dead man, if there is no future "past the grave"? Sleep and rest can be affirmed only of living beings. A clod neither sleeps nor rests; and Huxley, to-day, is only a clod, if his theory, when alive, was a true one. This epitaph reminds one of the story told of Robert Burns--that he went through a village graveyard once, reading the epitaphs, and, on coming out, asked the sexton: "Where do they bury the wicked people who die in this town?" The sexton answered: "Over there, sir." Burns said: "No there are none but the good buried there." The sexton insisted: "All, good and bad, are buried there, sir." Burns then took a piece of chalk and wrote over the gateway: "Here lie the dead, and the living lie."

[SEBC 137-138]