Love of Christ a bond of brotherhood
An unknown man one day dropped dead in new York. He semed to have been very poor, for in the pockets of his shabby clothes there was not a cent. His description was published in the newspapers, and among other details, mention was made of a tattoo mark on his right arm. It represents a tomb overhung by the branches of a weeping willow. Below was the inscription, "In memory of my mother." Nothig was known of him; but one thing was clear - he had once had a mother whom he loved. The body was sent to a station - house, and the next day would have been buried in Potter´s Field at the expense of the city, if a merchant had not interposed. He asked permission to pay the cost of a decent funeral in a cemetery for the man. He did not know him, but he, too, had lost his mother, and the memory of her had been enshrined in his heart for many years. He felt a brotherhood with the man whose love of his dead mother was displayed in the tattoo marks, and desired to do a brother´s part to him. If every Christian felt that the love of Christ, common to him with other Chriastians, constituted a bond of brotherhood with its claims upon him, how much hardship and pain would be relieved! (By Rev. Alexander Hutton Drysdale, M.A. Presbyterian Church)
Source: The Biblical illustrator : or, Anecdotes, similes, emblems, illustrations : expository, scientific, geographical, historical, and homiletic, gathered from a wide range of home and foreign literature, on the verses of the Bible / by Joseph S. Exell. 1890. P. 34. Philemon
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100193586
, The New York Times from New York, Page 3
"A middle-aged laborer or mechanic, who was tattooed on the arms and had " In Memory of My Mother" on the right arm, died suddenly at Fortieth Street and Eighth Avenue yesterday afternoon."
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A02E3D6123BE533A25750C2A9609C94619ED7CF
During the research for this contribution, I found a record of a car accident in Dallas. A month after the death of tattooed unknown person in New York, one young man was killed "by the cars" in Dallas. He was also wearing a tattoo in memory of his mother:
"Chief of
Police Arnold received a letter from Osage Mission, Kansas, to-day,
notifying him that a young man, name unknown, but
supposed to be from Dallas, had been run over and killed by the
cars at that place. Both arms of the deceased were tattooed.
On one was a tombstone in India ink, and below it, the inscription.
"In memory of my mother." He was neatly dressed, but
neither money nor papers were found upon his person. - July 23, 1890, Dallas
Daily Times Herald, p. 2, col. 5."
Source: Dallas County Archives, Migrations, 1890 http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jwheat/migrate90.html
Branislav Knežević
