The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-04-25
ASHEs TO ASHES.
Resurrection and Cremation.


 Preaching on Easter Sunday in the
 West Presbyterian church, Forty-sec-
 ond street, from the text: "Death is Swallowed uo in Victory" pr. Tal- madge incidentally referred to crema-
 ton, which from his point of view was
 in no way obstructive to resurrection of the body.
 The doctor argued, in part, as follows:
 You and I do not want our bodies re- turned to us as they are now. We want to get rid of all their weaknesses, and all their suceptibilities to fatigue, and all their slowness of locomotion. They will be put through chemistry of soil and heat and cold and changing | seasons out of which God will recon struct them better than they are now. But as to our soul, we will cross right over, not waiting for obsequies, with wider room and velocities beyond com putation.
 This view, of course, makes 1t of but ! little importance whether we are crem- ated or sepultured. If the latter is dust to dust, the former is ashes to ashes. If any prefer cremation, let | them have 1t without caricature. The world may become so crowded that cremation may be universally adopted by law as well as by common consent Many of the mightiest and best of earth have gone through this process. Thou sands and tens of thousands of Gods children have been cremated. P. F. Bliss and wife, the evangelist singers, cremated by accident at Ashtabula bridge; John Rogers, cremated by per- secution; Latimer and Ridley, cremat- ed at Oxford; Pothinus and Blondina, a slave, and Alexander, a physician, and their comrades, cremated at the or der of Marcus Aurelius; at least hun dred thousand of Christ's disciples cremated, and there can be no doubt about the resurrection of their bodies.
 "If the world lasts as much longer as it has already been built, there perhaps may be no room for the large acreage set apart for resting places, but that time has not come. Plenty of room yet, and the race need not pass that bridge of fire until it comes to it. The most of us prefer the old way. But whether out of natural disintegration or crema- ton, we shall get that luminous, bouy- ant, gladsome, transcendent, magnif- cent, inexplicable structure called the resurrection body"
 The classically aesthetic possibilities which cremation offers as compared with modern cemeteries or ancient cata- combs are not as yet fully understood. They are most vividly brought to mo- tlce of visitors at a well-appolnted, chapel-like columbarium, Fresh pond for instance, and have found a pleasant echo in the contribution of Dean Hodg- es to our February number.
 "A house of the departed" says the reverend gentleman, "a shrine of our own saints, built in the midst of the city, adorned like the Pantheon at Paris with golden frescoes, the walls recalling old stories of sanctity and her oism, with words of comfort from the sacred scriptures, and the ashes of the dead reverently laid away, without dis tinction of rank or money,-this would be better. Flowers could grow there, sweet music could be played there, and the living could commune there with the spirits of the dead.
 tor, better still, there might be re- vival of the good, old custom of laying the dead away in the churches. Crem- ation would make that possible Heav- en and earth would thus seem close to- gether. There would be no more remov- al of the relics of the dead miles away out of our sight. And that devotion to the dead which at present prompts the erection of great piles of carved stone beside grave, effecting no good pur- pose whatsoever, would lead to the en- riching and beautifying of the House of God. SO that all the worshlppers would be uplifted.s