Sometime prior to his assassination, Elder Pratt wrote the following:
Directions for my Funeral and Epitaph.
If, perchance, in pursuing the meanderings of the wearisome journey of life and through over fatigue, I should happen to fall asleep and forget to awake, and should this circumstance happen in the midst of my friends, I request of them as follows: Wash my body in pure water, anoint it entire with holy and perfumed oil in the name of the Lord, for the burial and resurrection. Put on my wedding garments complete, of fine white linen. Place my body thus prepared in a position neither too cool nor too warm; spread nothing over the face in such manner as to prevent breathing; give free circulation of pure air, and if there is no appearance of decomposition or bad smell, watch with it three days previous to burial. Then bury my decently. But let no one suppose for a moment that I am dead. Neither let any one shed a tear, or heave a sigh of sorrow. For, know assuredly that I am only sleeping a few short years where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. I also suggest the following lines to be sung at my funeral and engraved on my tomb.
Thou art gone to thy rest in the mansions of glory,
Thy toils and temptations and trials are o’er.
And joined with the Father who entered before thee,
The rod of the tyrant shall reach thee no more.
Thou art gone to thy rest, but we will not deplore thee,
Though the circle bereft are so dreary and lone.
There are souls thou hast loved that are gone there before thee,
And they welcome thy spirit returned to its own.
Thou art gone to thy rest and they loved ones forsaken,
Must tarry a moment in sadness below.
Till the living are changed and thy dust shall awaken,
And the circle completed, no sorrow shall know.
While I live, let not this be seen by any person.
[Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, May 13, 1857, 5]