The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1878-04-09
Fair Play. for DR.. lie Moyne.

n. Y. Tribune
Some Of the good orthodox folk in Penn
~sylyAnia brought a bill before the Legis-
lature recently, intended TO put a sum
mary stop to Dr.. lie Moynes proceedings.
Burning the dead Is 70 be made an indie
table offence, punishable with fine and
Imprisonment. The bill Is introduced
with the usual wholesome s%cotch-Irish
shudder Of horror Al novelties unauthor.
lied BY the Kirk. Cremation Is by sail
ri~shtthinkipg people believed TO be .
"chfiatiAn, inhnman and wicked asserts
the compliment preamble. We have no
doubt that DR.. lie Moyne, who a. an old
abolitionist, knows how necessary 70 the
growth OF 4 reform Ia q gust Of opposition
will be rather amused and gratiied If he
and his retort are accommodated by the
Harrisburg Legislature. The country Is
wide and there 10 plenty OF room for the
c~fematories which are already projected,
in 1t The American public, too, likes
fair play, and very little serious atteh'
ton would be given BY the mas Of peo-
pie to the cr~emationists probably, solong
n they carried on their burning unmol-
ested; but as soon ashley are persecuted,
the public will look anxiously into the
matter TO zee what there isin 1t,
The truth is, the disposal Of our dead
Is mainly q matter ofieelipg, not religion.
The heathens burned the dead body, bat
that does not make the burning itselt'
h~eatkenish any more than are the physi-
cal sports,training and medicine by which
they cared for the living body, and which
we inherit from them. The chief basis
for religious argument aboutit Is, appar.
entity, the belief that the elements OF the
body will all be called out Of the grave
at the resurrection. But the elements
are not separated by burning more surely
than by the slow decay In the ground.
They are not destroyed BY either process,
and God, II he chooses, can call them to-
gether again. Neither 9 the law in-
Ierfere on the ground OF inhumanity,
where neither the dead nor the living are
injured.
The sole point left for discussion il,
then, whether burning or burial Is the
most decent reverent and innoxions
mode OF disposal OF the dead. DR.. LIE
Moyne and his party point to the thou
sands Of bodies packed in city cemeteries
in all stages Of p%utretsctiopi TO the poison
percolating into the water. currents and
reaching up 10 the air, and to all the hor.
rible wormy changes which our beloved
dead mus. pass through before they be-
come ashes. They ofsr, instead, q swift,
bright passage into the original elements
by q method which they assert is simple,
revereut, and totally harmless to the liy.
ing,the gases being consumed In the flames
before they reach the outer air. Opposed
to them il the iron force Of custom, which
in matters Of feeling carries men with 1t
against the veightiest and most reason
able argument. There are q myriad ten.
der associations for most Of us In the
green graves md solemn shade OF village
churc6yards, which it will need volumes
Of logic to overcome. But as there Is ap.
paren.ly a large minority Of men and NO.
men in the country who, II they did not
shrink from notoriety, would prefer ere
nation, any attempt to force q senti,
ment upon them as law Is unjust, and
must in the end prove abcrtiye.