The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-10
BURNING VS.. BURY1NG.
Am Argument for Cremation from
Christian Stand.Point.

Am Argument for Cremation from q
Christian Stand-POint.
Cremation is matter that has attain
ed to fixed place in the popular mind
and the question, "Shall the dead bf
burned p is discussed with q calmness
that could not have been known but 6
few years since; for then it would have
been said that while "dust is dust ,
were words fit for Christians to use. il
was not clear that "ashes to ashes y ex
pressed christian sentiment. taxed by
themselves. Used as the latter words
are In the burial service of the Episco.
pal church, that is, as part of most
affecting whole, it could not be said
that they were either unchristian OF
suggestive of an unchristian proceed.
ing,-for there would have been neither
sense nor charity in questioning the
pure christianity of the Anglican
church. But even now we find not 9
few men ready to denounce cremation,
because, say they, it causes the body
to disappear altogether, and is in fla
grant opposition to the doctrine of the
bodys 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 on 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
a 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 a Daniel
Lambert could be made to disappear in
few minutes. Powerful gasses could
instantaneously use up the dead body
| of being who is, in a physical sense.
little more than a collection of gasses.
1t is matter of like to like. Ordinary
modes of burning, such as were known
when Sulla and Caesar were reduced to
ashes, must consume many hours as
well 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
est. Innocent's churchyard," which
consumed bodies rapidly, or like "the
sands of Egypt" where they lasted
long. It is q question of time, merely;
and all the air-tight cofins that ever
could be made, though placed in an air.
tight tomb, could not for ever preserve
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
R0mulus 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
emUaImenT is no snIeId H3Eirst 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 embalment of George the Third |
applies as justly to Rameses:
81 So mix his body with the dust 1t might
fO yul1of 20
The natural compound left alone to fight
It's way back into earth, and fire, and 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 pinch OF dust remains
of Cheops," not mummy of them all
can endure forever. The Egyptians,
however, had some reason for preserv-
ing the body, for they believed the soul
would not desert the body while it
should be in a perfect state, whereas
the Christian belief is that the soul
leaves the body at death, and that the
is necessary to their re-
union. The resurrection must be a
for it is contrary to all laws,
and belief that it will come has no
save what proceeds from the
declaration of the Saviour. Mortality
belongs to the Old Testame ent, immor
tality to the New and but for the lat
ter's words, there would be 10 more
belief among educated persons in the
existence the soul after death in the
days of General Grant than there was
among educated persons in the davs of
Tmperator Caesar, according to the re-
port of q speech of his made by so &C
a1 n1 -%oRn Ill |
Christians hold to the resurrection, and
10 the Immortality of the soul, for ex-
actly the same reason that the first
Crusaders determined upon their
strange task,-because "God Wills it I"
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 is
in the lines that Raleigh wrote
On a blank leaf of his Bible, the night
before his execution
"E'en such is time! who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have.
And pays us but with age and dust:
Who in the the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways
Shuts UP the story of our days!
But from this earth, this grave, this dust
The Lord will raise mo up, trust"
As Raleigh, with a mind as great as
broad, and as variously endowed, as
hat of his contemporary Shakespeare,
based his hope of resurrection solely ON
the Bible, and knew that the fruition of
hat hope depended upon nothing but
the exertion of omnipotent power,-a
power that makes all laws, and which
1T pleasure could override all laws, if
such words be permissibIe-so does the
numblest of christians base his belief
IN a resurrection and in life-eternal on
;he New Testament's promise that God
will raise him up from that earth, that
grave, that dust which are common to
Ill men, the globe being but a potters-
ield. AS the resurrection will be a
miracle, and the most stupendous of all
Miracles, why should it be less likely
hat men should be raised from urns
han from coffns, from the columbia
-io1n1 than from the tomb, from the
5ustuns than from the churchyard
We're men whose bodies were burned
20 be cut off from the benefit of the
what would become of the
nyriads of martyrs who went to the
lanes for their faith? st. Peter was
,rucifed, but st. Marx was burned
l. L |