News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-06-04
Ii DEATH IS IN A HOUSE
Is 1T WRONG TO PUT THE wHOTE
FAMILY IN HEAVY BLACKP

V |
Is 1T WRONG TO PUT THE WHOLE
s FAMILY IN HEAVY BLACKP
# MIR. Newton Against Following the Rodx
, 10 the Grave and for Cremation Duty
10 the Living Precedes Fancied Duty ia
7 the Dead. ~
, Immediately after a death in the
house" said the Rev. r. Heber Newton
Sunday in Anthon Memorial Church.
"the minister's visit may be welcomed,
but the chief thought is given in many
household at such times to the milliner
and the dressmaker. Too often funeral
customs are in reality the parade of
grief, and not its expression. There is
room for improvement in many of our
forms of grief. The sashes which the
old Knickerbocker custom dictated
ltyrannously in the past are still by many
kPaSSccI- .-ssSad occasions, and the
clergy are asked to deck thei1serrtssss eierts IS IS
conspicuously with a symbol whose
meaning no memory of man can now in
terpret. dislike the show of this GUS
tom, and I object to any symbol which
has become a mere conventional sign,
signifying nothing. Of far greater i'm
portance are the still prevailing excesses
in mourning dress. 1t is very question
able to me whether it is right at all to
garb our children from head to foot in
the deepest black. Highly nervous
children are sensitive beyond our reali-
cation to colors, to the quality Of the
material, and to the associations in
volved in mourning dress. Some
proper marks of grief may naturally be
placed on our children, but parents
should study watchfully the effects OF
the prevalent excessive customing Of lit
tie ones in black upon their health. As
to the use of black by women, have
seen some instances of sensitive natures
persisting in shadowing themselves in
gloom, injuring their health, affecting
their spirits, and wronging their house
hold unconsciously, lest they omit mis-
called duty to the dead. Let us not
wrong the dead by thinking to honor
them in that which Injuries ourselves or
our households.
Following the body to the grave-in
milder and more equable climates how
beautiful the custom, but how irrecon-
cilable with the conditions of our life |
here to-day. During any portion of the
year the custom is attended with newt
able risk. Through our winters the
days are exceptional when the ground |
is dry enough and the air mild enough |
to allow of such usage without peril.
When storm RACES the observation of
this custom is q wrong. Again and |
again have concluded service feeling |
as though 1 could scarcely stand, and
when, after such service, draining ones |
sympathies in heated, crowded house, |
there follows long drive to the suburb
an cemetery and standing with uncov- |
cred head round the grave in inclement |
weather, the service is rendered at an
imminent risk of ones future work on
earth. The minister who loves his peo- |
pie cannot protest He must submit, |
The Church is to-day without the SER
vice of men who could be i'll spared, be.
cause of mistaken notions of duty we
owe the dead.
'sPhysicians should unite to protest
against holding funeral service when
death ensues from infectious disease.
The air is death-laden, and to enter the
home is to invite sickness and death.
Only ignorance or thoughtlessness can
be an excuse for inficting so cruel
wrong on the friends of the dead.
shall never again officiate at such SER
vices.
"Another custom which Is wrongly
conceived to be duty toward the dead
is that of interment as we now practice
il. The custom is to me unspeakably
revolving. The old Greeks, when they
buried at all, placed their dead truly IN
the bosom of the earth-mother, draped
in flowing robes, flowers sprinkled above
their breas Is, nothing around them to in
terfere with the chemical processes which
nature sets Immediately at work when
death ensues, in order to return earth TO
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We
copy the form, but we add every pos
sible hindrance to the natural process
of dissolution. We place our dead IN
two or three cases. We enclose the
wooden casket in a metallic box, and
seal it tight as possible. We cannot
prevent the inevitable dissolution, but
we can and do prevent natures purify
ing this process. We can and do delay
this process. We can and do turn what
would be an innocuous process into one
fraught with danger to the living. The
dead are standing menace. No sanl-
tary science in our homes can save US
from perpetual danger while the homes
of the dead violate the laws of nature. |
From our graves gases are liberated to
poison the air. Fountainheads OF water
are tainted. Germs of disease are
turned up to the surface of the earth
with every change made by the ceme-
tary superintendent. I hope TO see the
| introduction of cremation. For, seek
ing to use my life in some real and
earnest work for my fellows, it would be
grief to me to think that my remains
became source of danger to any human
being. No possible conception of our
duty toward the dead stands in the way
of reasonable solution Of the problem
which confronts us. To set mp any one
form as the only rightful custom is to
-, n
surround that traditional form with the
associations of religion, so that when
science calls us to change it we shrink
back in fear that is to invite a new
superstition, from which our age ought
surely to have shaken itself free. Yet
in England, only a few years ago,
leading dignitary of the national Church
dared to assert that cremation endan-
gered the belief in the life to come To
his medieval mind the rising up into
new life meant the rising up again of
the actual body which had been laid
away in the grave. To burn that body
in crematory seemed 10 him to evanish
the soul into air. Yet We know that one
and the same process OF combustion is
carried on in either mode of disposing
of the body, and that if the dissolution
of the body imperilled the true doctrine
of the resurrection, then that doctrine
was long ago hopelessly lost Yet just