The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-07-16
RuRrINa US. RuRYINa.
An Argument for Cremation from
Christian Stand-PoInt.

dAu QuESElOls OAAl1r EHG AEA0 Ut
burned 2" is discussed with 8 calmness
that could not have been known but s
few years since; for then it would have
been said that while "dust is dust >
were words ct for Christians to use, il
was not clear that '' ashes to ashes ex
pressed christian sentiment, taken by
themselves. Used as the latter words
are in the burial service of the Episco-
pal church, that is, as part of q most
affecting whole, il could not be seid
that they were either pnchristian OF
suggestive OF an unchristian proceed
ing,-for there would have been neither
sense nor charity In questioning the
pure christianity of the Anglican
! es'Hreh. But even now we find not q
few men ready to denounes ereuEs lou,
because, say they, it causes the body
to disappear altogether, and is in fa-
grant opposition TO the doctrine of the
body's resurrection, which is one of the
most important points in the christian
dispensation, perhaps the most impor-
tant point of all. This objection is
based IN the notion, it should seem,
that buried body will continue to re-
main in the ground, though without
life, until the resurrection day, when it
will renew the life it resigned on the
possessor being overtaken by death
but it would be impossible to show that
dead body perishes, In the sense of
passing away, more completely when
burned than it does when buried. The
only difference, in this respect, between
the two modes of disposing of the dead,
| between cremation and humation, is,
that the one operates quickly, and the
other slowly. There are means of burn
ing the dead by which even Daniel
| 10 rxoo5a 10, IN
few minutes. Powerful gasses could
instantaneously nse up the dead body
of being who is, in physical sense,
| little more than collection of gasses.
It is a matter of like to like. Ordinary
| modes of burning, such as were known
when Sulla and Caesar were reduced to
ashes, mnst consume many hours as
| we'll as much fuel. The buried body is
long, comparatively speaking, in return
| ing to dust. Something depends upon
the condition of the body when buried,
more upon the nature of the earth
in which it is buried, whether it be like
''St. Innoeent's churchyard, which
consumed bodies rapidly, or like 6 the
sands of Egypt" where they lasted
long. It is a question of time, merely;
and all the air-tight coffins that ever
could be made, though placed in an air
. blkBb OOuAO nOb AOA CNOA k'AOoOAN
the dead from decay. Often has it been
the case that human body has appar-
emily lasted for thousands of years in a
tomb, but on being exposed to air it has
crumbled to dust, and no more has been
left of it than would be equal to the
bones and ashes of his child that Ro-
man had placed in an urn. There are
persons living who have stood face to
face with men who lived long "ere
Romulus and Remus had been suck
led, men Who had lain undisturbed
in Etruscan tombs for thirty centuries,
or more, but who passed out of sight
almost as soon as the interviews effected
by the disturbance of their repose be-
gan, turning to a mere handful of dust.
They seemed to h We stood the attacks
of time, but the first breeze that they
felt was fatal blow to them. Even
embalment is no shield against decay,
and ultimate disappearance. 1t simply
protracts an inevitable process, post
poning for ages the execution Of the in
| evitable sentence. There are mummies
of men who lived and loved and died
many centuries before Joseph was pre-
mier in Egypt, but not the less Will they
return to dust. What Byron said of
the enbalment of George the Third
applies as Justly to Rameses:
$50 mix his body with the dust! 1t might
Return to what it must far sooner, were
The natural compound left alone to fight
Its way back into earth, and hre, ana air
But the unnatural balsams merely blight
What nature made him at his birth, as bare
AS the millions base unmummied clay
Yet all his spices but prolong decay.
"Since not a pinch OF dust remains
of Cheops," not mummy of them all
can endure forever, The Egyptians,
! L. for
ing the body, fer they believed the soul
would not desert the body while it
should be in q perfect state, whereas
the Christian belief is that the soul
leaves the body at death, and that the
resurrection is necessary to their re-
union. The resurrection must be a
miracle, for it is contrary to all laws,
and belief that It will come has no
foundation save what proceeds from the
declaration of the Saviour. Mortality
belongs to the Old Testament, immor-
talitv to the New and but for the lat
ter's words, there would be 10 more
belief among educsted persons in the
existence the soul after death Ia the
DAYS of General Grant than there was
among educated persons in the days OF
Imperator Cesar, according to the re-
port of q speech of his made by so ac-
/
Christians hold to the resurrection, and
to the immortality of the soul, for ex-
actlv the same reason that the nrsi
Crusaders determined upon theil
strange task,-because " God wills 1T >
because they have had, through the
mouth of the Son of God, positive
assurance that all who die shall live for
ever. The common Christian belief il
embodied in the lines that Raleigh wrote
on a blank leaf of his Bible, the nigh
} before his execution
Zen such is timeI who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys and ali We have,
! And paws us but with age and dust
Who in the the dark snd silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story OF our dsysl
But from this earth. this grave, this dust,
} The Lord VIII raise me up, trust"
As Raleigh, with q mind as great a
I broad, and as variously endowed, a
= that of his contemporary Shakespeare
! | I,asad his hone Of resurrection solely oI
1 the Bible. and knew that the fruitiOn o
: that hope depended upon nothing bu
3 the eSertion of omnipotent power
d ! power that makes all laws, and whicl
r at Measure could override ali laws, J
r such words be permissible-so does tn
{ humblest of christians base his belle
e in a resurrection and in ife-eternal o.
e the New Testament's promise that Go
viii raise him up from that earth, tha
crave. that dust which are common t
I an men. the globe being but a potter
field. As the resurrection will be
miracle, and the most stupendous Of a
miracles, why should it be less hkel
: that men should be raised from uTr
n than from cofins, from the cotun1bt
4 yiuD1 than from the tomb, from th
! bustalrl than from the churcbyard
3 Were men whose bodies we're burne
4 to be cut of from the benefit Of Il
e resurrection, what would become of Il
4 navriads Of martyrs who went to q
7 flames for their faith? st. Peter WI
It crueifed. but st. Marx was burned
m and is st. Marx TO be regarded as e
81 tinot merely because fanaticai Egyl
is tians burned his body What Is Il
n fate of John Huss, and of jerome
"a Prague, and of Savonarola, and Of lIol
4 Cobharn, and of Wishart, and of Crsl
"A uer. and of Servetus, if the burned e
go