Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1883 — ANDREW JACKSON’S SENSE. [ARTICLE]

ANDREW JACKSON’S SENSE.

Why He Did Not Want to be Buried in a Roman Emperor’s Coffin. At the meeting of the Board of City Trusts, to-day, the report of Vice President |Gregory, of Girard College, in regard to the sarcophagus recently discovered in the cellar of the College was received and placed upon the minutes. The sarcophagus will remain in the College museum. It presented to the College by Commodore Elliott in 1838, and when an investigation oi the records of the Councils of this city was made recently the following letter from Andrew Jackson was found, together with Commodore Elliott’s letter, presenting'him with the sarcophagus. In this letter the Commodore said: “I pray you, General, to live on in the fear of the Lord. Dying the death of a Roman soldier, an Emperor’s coffin awaits you.” The following was General Jackson’s reply: “With the warmest sensations that can inspire a grateful heart, I must deciine accepting the honor intended to be bestowed. I can not consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King. My Republican feelings and principles forbid it. Every monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and statesmen ought to bear evidence of the simplicity and economy of our Republican institutions and the plahmesoofour Republican citizens, wno are the. sovereigns of our glorious Union, and whose virtue is to perpet uateit. True virtue can not exist where pomp and parade are the governing passion*. It can only dwell with the people—the great laboring Sand producing classes that form the bone and sinews of our Confederacy.' I have prepared an humble depository for my mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife, where, without any pomp or parade, I have requested when my God calls me to my Fathers, to be laid, for both of us there to remain -until the. last trumpet sounds to call the dead to judgment, when we, I hope, shall rise together clothed with that heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Redeemer, who died for us that we might live, and for whose atonement I hope foi a blessed immortality. Andrew Jackson.” Professor Gregory’s report gives a translation of the inscription on the sarcophagus, and says: “The inscription translated is Julia, the daughter of Caius Mammaea, aged 30. Julia Domna was the wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus. Her sister, Julia Maesa, wielded great influence at court, and ad a daughter. Julia Mammaea, born 15 ke the other Julias at Emesa, in Syria. But this can not be the lady, as she was was much older than thirty when she lost her life. It is reasonable to conclude that Julia Cali Fil iamammaea, whose sarcophagus was found at Berytus, sixty miles from the Emperor’s birthplace at Arce, and about 100 miles from his mother’s native town, was one of the objects of the im-. perial county of Alexander Severus.” The date of the erection was probably 250 a. d. A young man near Abbeville’ Ala., contracted with a farmer to work for him a year for his daughter and a doublebarreled shot-gun. The contract has been faithfully performed, ami the young man is ; now the happy possessor of his double prize.