Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-03-10
STANDING UPON THE TRACK.

The Archbishop of Paris last week
issued decree forbidding cremation.
Everyone has heard of the foolish fellow
who resolved to stand upon the track and
seize the locomotive in his two good hands
and pitch it into the ditch when it arrived
that it might not cross his land. Every
one has also heard of the degree of sue
cess with which his efforts were rewarded.
The Archbishop of Paris has simply
proved to the world what short-sighted
and ill-informed council directs his utter
ance, and how slavish he is to be its mouth
piece.
Cremation is acknowledged by the first
scientists and philanthropists, by the lead
ing medical scholars of the world, by the
most experienced sanitarians, by the most
studious men, and by all those who have
given any considerable thought to the SUBJ
ject to be the one, only, and altogether su-
perior and decent method Of disposing of
the dead, not only for the protection of the
living, bnt for paying the highest respect
to the departed. A thousand times the
clean, purifying, white hot chamber of the
incinerator, where the flame does not
reach, and the pearly ashes, the result of
cremation, to be treasured in vase and
buried, stored or entombed thereafter, than
the deep, dark, damp grave, with its corrup-
tion, rotting horrors, and nameless tenants
that feed upon putrefaction, to say nothing
of the poisoning of the soil, the pollution
of waters, the contamination of the at
mosphere, and the cultivation of the mi
crobes of contagious and infectious dis
eases.
Not long ago the american Catholic
Quarterly Revier the ablest and most
brilliant church journal on the continent,
undertook to prove that inhumation alone
was possible of recognition by the Church.
But after mighty labors the conclusion
reached was this, and this only; The
Church traditions have all been for burial,
therefore they shall not be disturbed; the
fathers practiced burial, therefore we must
not advance; musty, dusty and parchment
dried old councils of Church dignitaries
decided centuries ago that the grave is the
destiny of the helpless body, therefore the
nineteenth century of enlightened scien-
tifc discovery and research must be obedi-
ence to the past.
So the Archbishop but follows at the
heels of the theological father he acknowl-
edges. 1t little concerns him that in
twice a score of other things, the Church
has, in the past, occupied positions rela-
tive to doctrines of discovery, science and
progress incompatible with the knowledge
of the present In this matter of crema-
tion or burial the Archbishop reflects that
it is matter of taste or sentiment, rather
than of creed or doctrine, and hence his
Church has, and must not lose the oppor-
tunity in this one instance to prove her
power. For as the question does not in
terfere with liberty of conscience or politi-
cal freedom, the Church is insured against
any very vigorous opposition to its decree
in favor of burial as the only christian"
method for the disposal of mortal remains.
But the Church is only emulating the ex-
ample of the fellow who attempted the
experiment with the locomotive. Crema-
tion will continue; it viii presently be
the chief means of disposing of our loved
dead; it will not be many years before
science and sanitary knowledge will in
struct the law, and its decree will be that
burial is injurious and dangerous to the
living provocative of disaster and DEATH
and hence worthy of inhibition by statute.
The Church in that day viii do as it has in
Others, yield to knowledge, and its devo-
tees will wonder that their fathers could
have been as foolish as they are to stand
upon the track when the locomotive thun-
ders down the line upon them.