The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1874-05-14
BoDY-BURNING.


:. was of the oldest date the old exam
Piles of Abraham and the patriarchs
are sufficient to Illustrate.
i In the reign of Julian, the king OF
. ChiORia, Ga country near Persiae
burned the body of his son, and in
TERED the ashes in silver urn.
4 Cornelius Sylla was not the first
whose body was burned in Rome, but
; the first of the fCorHelian family, which
being not frequently used before,
from that time spread, and became the
,4prevalent practice.
The Indian Beachmans seemed too
great friends unto fire, who burned
themselves alive and, thought it the
noblest way to end their days in fire.
The Chaldeans, the great idolators
) of fire, abhorred the burning of their
careasses, as pollution of that deity.
The Persian magi declined it upon
the like scruples, and being only solic-
itons about their bones, exposed their
1f1esh to the prey OF birds and dogs.
The Egyptians were afraid of FIRE,
NOT as asdeity, but as q deYouring ele-
ment, mercilesslY consuming their
bodies and leaving too little Of them !;
and, therefore, by precious embalm-
ments or handsome enclosures in glass
es, eontriFed the nOtablest way of in-
tegral consecrations.
The Scythians, who swore by fire
land sword, that is, by life and death,
were so far from burning their bodies
that they declined all interment and
| made their graves in the air.
The Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating ma
tions about Egypt, affected the sea for
their grave, thereby declining visible
corruption, and restoring the debt of
their bodies.
The old heroes of Homer dreaded
nothing more than water or drowning.
] The Balearians had peculiar mode
| for they used great urns and much
wood, but no fire in their burials,
while they bruised the flesh and bones
of the dead, crowded them into uTas,
and laid heaps of wood upon them.
| The Chinese, without emotion or
urnal interment of their bodies, made
use of trees and much burning
while they plant pine tree by their
| grave and burn great numbers of
printed draugnts of slaves and horses
| over it,
Christians abhorred this style of OBJ
sequies, and though they stickled not
to give their bodies to be burned in
their lives, detestad that mode after
death, affecting rather q depositure
than assumption, and properly SUBJ
mitting unto the sentence of God to
return, not unto ashes, but unto dust
again, and conforinable unto the prac-
tice of the patriarchs, the interment
of our Savior, of Peter, Paul, and the
ancient martyrs.
! The Mussulman believers win never
admit this frey resolution, for they
hold present trial from their black
and white angels in the grave, which
| they must have made so hollow that
they may rise upon their knees.
The Jewish nation, though they en-
tertained the old way of inhumation,
yet sometimes admitted this practice
for the men of Jabesh burned the
body of Saul; and by no prohibited
practice. TO avoid contagion or poIlu-
ton in time of pestilence, burned the
bodies of their friends.
They that are so thick skinned as
still to credit the story of the Phoenix
may say something for animal burn
| ing.
Some uncertainty there is from tIfe
period or term of burning. or the cess
alton of that practice. Macrobius af-
firmet ii was disused in his days :
Not strictly after Marcus; for about
! fifty years later we find the magnifi-
cent burning and consecrations of
Servus and if we SO fix this period Of
cessation, these urns will challenge
about thirteen hundred years.
In the form of burial among the
ancient Brittons the large discourses
of Caesar, Tacitus, and Strabo are 81
lent.
That the Druids and ruling priests
used to burn and buryi is expressed by
Pomponius.
That burning the dead was used in
Sarmatia is affirmed by Gaquinus ;that
the GothIanders used to burn their
princes and great persons is delivered
by SAKE and CLAUS that this was the
old German practice is also asserted
by Tacitus. f as
How the bulk of man should sink
into SO few pounds of bones and ashes
may seem strange unto any who con-
siders not its constitution; and how
slender mass will remain upon an
open and urging fire of the carnal
composition. Even bones themselves
reduced into ashes, do abate notable
proportion, and consist in much of
volatile salt; when that is fired out
make light kind of cinders.
To be knav'd out of our graves, to
have our skull made drinking bowls,
and our bones made into pipes to de-
light and sport our enemies, are trag-
ical abominations escaped in burning
buriaIs.
Urnal interments and burned relicts
lie not in fear of worms or to be q
heritage for serpents. In carnal sep
ulture corruptions seem peculiar unto
parts; and some speak of snakes out
hof the spinal marrow.
Christians have handsomely CLOSED
the deformity of death by careful con-
sideration of the body and civil rights
which take off brutal terminationss
Men have lost their reason in moth
ing so much as their religion.
The aneients burned not their chill
dren before their teeth appeared, as
apprehending their bodies too tender
a morsel for fire, and their gristly
bones would scarce leave seperable
relics after the pyral combustion
That they kindled not fire in their
houses for some days after was a strict
memorial of the late affiicting fire.
The ancient custom of placing coins
in considerable urns and the present
practice of burying medals in the no.
Bile foundations OF Europe are lauda-
Bile ways of historical discoveries in
actions, persons, chronologies, and
prosperity will applaud them.
GraVestones tell truth scarce forty
years. Generations pass while some
trees stand. and old families last not
three oaks.
Had they, (the ancients) made as
good provisions for their names as
they have done for their relics, they
had not so grossly erred in the art of
perpetuation.
We cannot hope to live so long in
our names as some haye done in their
! persons.
Oblivion is not to be hired. The
greater part must be content to be as
though they had not been-to be
bound ia the register of God, not in
| the record of man.
Egyptian mummies, which Candy