The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-07
THE SECOND DAYS SESSION
Continued from Third Page.)

ligiouS, and marked a distinct step in
 human progress. The simple ceremony
 separated the little community which
 first adopted it from, and elevated it
 above all other communities of the time it was a distinctive mark to be imitat- ed, and since then there has been noth- ing so distinctive of the character of a people as the ceremony attending the
 burying of it's dead. It is the one cere-
 mony which associates itselt with all
 shades of religious sentiment from the joyous feast, the gentle and rational
 sorrow up to the deificaton of the dead and the torture oi the living
 1 Just how much primitive man knew l of the beginning, of God, we cannot tell, but we do know that in the darkest minds there is a reaching for something beyond, above, outside itself, it may be
 an involuntary searching after a first cause, but the elemental impulse saw
 through the darkness ray of light and
 stimulated by that success struggled 1 with greater effort 10 find a cause for l lifa and death. Effort increased desire | and desire to know led by devious paths and after long delays out of barbarism | into civilization.
 | The cave was soon covered with debris ! of disintegrating mountains and was soon a forgotten grave. But even prim- ative man could not endure to be forgot | ten, and the cairn followed the cave. A heap of loose stones thrown into pile above the grave told that the dead was there, and that the dead was 1e | membered. It told, too, of social posi- tion, that the dead had been noted
 man in his tribe or community, and so stimulated ambition and excited the liv- ing to emulate the dead; to efforts to be like him, brave and honorable and
 so secure a like reward The grave of the common man was unmarked, nobody cared for him. The great men, the brave leader in war, the wise in counsel received honorable burial-and the unit ed tribe made supreme effort to perpet- uate here the memory of such and to provide for their supposed needs here
 after. The slaves were slain and plac- ed in an eXcava ,ion underneath the
 chief the horse that had carried him in
 battle and in the chase was killed and
 placed at he feet; the weapons which Idu stlNGu llitlt So Ntll III dlldCh anu defence, and which had provided food for himself and his loved ones, which
 might be needed in his journey to the
 great hereafter, or in the hereafter with
 the utensils for cooking and holding food, and the ornaments and jewels
 which he had worn and which marked
 his social condition were placed by his
 side, and then above all the great
 mound of earth was heaped. or the stones of the cairn were thrown or the dolmen or comlech stones were placed.
 Whichever 1t was, it marked the place of burial, it perpetuated the memory of the dead and told in language intended to be read in future ages the history of all the actors and the history of the times as well.
 The dolmen. the cromlech and the Druid altar may tell of human sacrifice and idol worship. but they also tell that the forest priests taught that the body contained a soul that should not perish that clean lives pleased the gods and that virtue and truth would be re- warded.
 And when Romans deseerated the DuTflIS Dldt6S Ol tl1t anu over turned their altars and exterminated the priests, the moral condition of Flu rope was degraded by century.
 Tn Ireland the Daanan and Firbolg, In the East and in Peru the Children of the Sun reared their round towers and obelisks and altars whose beveled apex pointed to the great Sun God. giver of life and light, while the base marked the resting place of the dead. Strange monuments they were, telling of a strange people of wonderful ability prematurely developed-able even then to penetrate to the inner chambers of nature and wiring from her unwilling grasp important secrets.
 The religion of Ireland, the East and Peru was nature worship, but the sun was God, the sweet dew was hope, the fierce midday was power, the declining sun was death and the new morning was the resurrection. The sun was their fa- ther. the moon was their mother, the stars were their personal friends with whom they held familiar communion.
 The people whose graves in Ireland are marked by the round towers were seHulHS IliSSlondIleS ana tedCne1S over Europe when Europeans were barbara ans, if not worse, and the sun worship pers of the East sent their wise men to the stable in Bethany bearing gold frankinsenee and myrrh as recognition of the king priest, martyr, whose com ing the star told to them alone
 The great pyramids of Egypt mark special period in the history of human burial and world development That the world was far advanced in all arts and sciences when the pyramids were reared, the pyramids themselves demonstrate, and like the best modern monuments they tell of the people as they were. Architecture and astronomy had reach ed that degree of perfection that Cheops is known as the Miracle of stone" so absolutely perfect are it's lines and pro- portions and it's wonderful construction. In the inner chamber, in a stone saco- phagus, lay the body, so preserved that it would retain the original form through thousands of centuries, until the soul released from purgatory should again tenant it,when both should live immortal. The priests had learned the lessons of immortality, but limited the blessing to the rich and great, and nowhere in Egypt is there a monument