The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-09-20
1T Is COMING.

mospheric disturbances, and cholera
and the yellow plague, it is the part
of wisdom to consider the best man
ner of disposing of the accommodating
dead, and therefore paper from the
pen Of Rev. John D. Bengless, in the
Princeton Review, attracts attention.
Sanitary science is occupying an adj
vanced position in the minds of edu-
Gated people, and among the most ad-
vanced thinkers of the day are to be
found the advocates of cremation
as one of its most valued agents.
A cotemporary contends that the
main obstacle at present in the way
of incarceration of the dead is super
stitious opposition, backed mainly by
church prejudice. This the learned
minister would break down. He re-
fers to late declarations made by Very
Rev. Lord Bishop, of Lincoln, who,
standing not long ago, at the altar of
Westminster Abbey, mathematical
cremation, pronoIncing it "barbarous
and unnatural" and holding that the
first fruits of incarceration, if adopted,
would be 'to undermine the faith of
mankind in the doctrine of the resur-
rection of the body" Mr.. Bengless said:
Possibly the illustrious dead of that
grand pantheon would have been less
eloquent in the good bishops cause if
instead of speaking through his lips
some of those dungeons could have
11oao ~, 80 LaA
vast charnel house could have been
seen in all the repulsive loathsome-
ness of their protracted putrefaction,
wherein, through long decades and
centuries, most literally "the worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched."
Assuming the doctrine of the literal
be true, can it be supposed to be less
possible or less easy for the all know
ing and almighty God to gather and
revivify the material atoms after they
have been oXidized and scattered by
the agency of the incinerator that
after precisely the same result has
in the earth? And if as the
Bishop of Lincoln seems to
assume, it is impossible for God to
d1OO uP OI1O pOu1OO VI GllOOO WIN .
been burned, "What," it has been
pertinently asked, sis to become of
the blessed martyrs"-th0se who have
suffered death at the stake or been
broiled on beds of iron for the sake
| of truth and conscience? Had his
grace, the bishop of Lincoln, been
graduated from Trinity College, Ok
ford, instead of Trinity College.
Cambridge. he could daily, during his
undergraduate course, have looked
over into st. ellis street, hundred
yards to westward, upon one of the
most beautiful Gothic monuments to
be found in any land. This is known
as "The Martyrs Memorial" and was
erected to commemorate the event, on
the spot where Archbishop Cranmer
and Bishops Latimer and Ridley were
burned at the stake. And is there to
be no resurrection for these holy men
Decomposition is in its final results
the same by the process of decay as
is that of incarceration. DR.. Bengless
continues:
This process of decomposition is
simply one of oxidation; and that, as
carried on in the grave, retarded by
the surrounding and incumbent earth
is well described by the technical
term invented by Professor Liebie
and adopted by chemists and physi
clans generally for its designation
eremecausis, eremos, lone, solitary
desolate, and kausis, burning-"a soil
tary or desolate burning" 1t is thu
process by which life has been sup
ported, earring on after death, unit
all the material fed to life has beer
consumed. Thus science has DISCOVERIES
to us that in our bodily material W,
all must burn. In this we have n
voice of election, and no deuice of mel
can finally avert this destiny. w
may choose aS.to whether it shall be
process of an hour in the clean, ros,
glow of crematorium, or a process
of twenty, fifty, or one hundred year
in the gloom and loathSomeneSS of tn,
grave, but in any and every case thes
2 material bodies must burn. The evils
create and embalmed bodies of tn
eharoeS and their descendants, pre-
: served thousands of years with almoS
|, unSpeakable care, which are now be
! ing sent by ShiploadS from Karnak t
+ 4 England to be converted into fertiliz
Iers, furnish examples of tn
process of oxidation long retardei
but not finally defeated So the "adi
| pocere process. advocated by the in
yentors and patentees of metallic an,
other hernaenticaliy sealed burial
cases may fill the land with slowly pu
trefying bodies, but these are only in
ventions for retarding natures worl
and for robbing nature for a time o
these pent-up forces. Ultimatel
cases and bodies alilSa must Yield {
the process OF oxidatson, and natufa
perfect w5Ek attaiB complete
Whatever the process, and ksrsve
: retarded, Ashes 10 asghss IS the Il
| eyitabie aecreo
: Such testimony oiglet e put st re-
these grsigdices against mgr g