The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-05-06
A Veteran CrematiOnist.
EXTRACTS FROM SIR THOMAS BROWNIES
'HYDRoTAPHIA."

=, lhat carnal interment or burying was OF
,he Oldest date the old examples OF Abra.
trate. 0 '"i'ie'e"' W iA"'-
e, me indian Beachmans seemed great
Iienus unto nre, who burned themselye
their days in fire. Wy W S"N
The Chaldeans, the great idolators of fire.
abhorred the burning of their oarcasses. as
a pollution of that deity.
The Persian magi declined it upon the like
scruples, and being only solicitous about
their bones, exposed their flesh 10 the prey of
birds and dogs.
The Egyptians were afraid Of fire, not as q
deity, but as devouring element, merciless
ly consuming their bodies and leaving too lit
tie OF them; and, therefore, by precious en-
balments or handsome Enclosures in glasses,
contrivel the notablest ways OF integral con-
secrations.
The Scythians, who swore by fire and
sword, that is, by life and death, were so far
from burning their bodies that they declined
al inserment and made their graves in the
air.
The Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating nations
about Egypt, affected the sea for their grave,
thereby declining visible corruption, and re-
storing the debt of their bodies
The Old heroes of Homer dreaded nothing
more than water or drowning
~ Inc BaiearianS had peculiar mode, for
they used great urns and much wood but no
fiieNin their burials, while they bruised tho
flesh aRd bones OF the dead, crowded them
into urns, and laid heaps of wood upon
them.
The Chinese, without -craal
interment of their bodies, maze
ard much burning, while they plant pne
tree by their grave and burn great numbers
or printed draughts of slaves and horses
over it.
Christians abhorred this style of obsequies,
and though they stickled not to give theic
bodies to be burned in their lives, detesteI
that mole after death, affecting rather de-
posture than assumption, AMI properly sub
mitting unto the sentence of God to return,
not unto ashes, but unto dust again, and
conformable unto the practice of the patri-
archs, tie interment of our Saviour, Of Peter,
Paul and the ancient martyrs.
The Mussulman believers will never admit
this fiery resolution, for they hold present
tlial 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 enter
tanned the old way Of inhumation, yet some
times admitted this practice, for the men Of
Jabesh burned the body of Saul; and, by no
prohibited practice, to avoid contagion or pol
luton in time of pestileIce, burned the bod
les of their friends
How the bulk of man would sink into so
few pounds of bones and ashes may seem
strange unto anyone who considers not its
constitution, and how slender a mass will re-
main uron an open and urging fire of tho
carnal composition. Even bones themselves
reduced into ashes do abate a notable pro-
portion, and consist in much of a volatile salt;
when that is fired out make a light kind OF
cinders.
hat tr-ox Attf Of To how
our skulls made drinking bowls and our
bones turned into pipes to delight and sport
our enemies, are tragcal denominations es-
capped i'll burning burias.
Urnal interments and burned relics lie not
in fear of worms or to be a heritage for SER
pents. In carnal sepulture corruptions seem
peculiar unto parts; aud some speak of snakes
out CT the spinal marrow.
Christians have handsomely CLOSED tho
deformity of death by careful consideration
of the body and civil rites which take off bru-
tai Examinations.
Men have lost their reason in nothing SO
much as their religion.
The ancents burned not their children be-
fore their teeth appeared, as apprehending
| their bodies too tender a morsel for fire, and
| that their griStly bones would scarce leave
separabIe relics after the pyral combustion.
| That they kinded not fire in their houses for
| some days after was 3 strict memorial OF the
! late affiicting fire.
Gravestones tel truth scarce forty years.
Generations pass while some trees stand,
and old families last not three oaks.
We cannot hope to live so long in our
names as some have 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 in the register of
God, not in the record of man.
Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or
time hath spared, avarice now consumetb.
Mummy is become merchandise. Miznoin
cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold Tor bal
sans.
There is nothing strictly immortal but i'm
mortality.
Life is a pure fame, and we live by an in
visible un within us.