The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-05-31
The Ashes of the Dead.
From the Macon News.

The late Franklin K Lane requested on
his death-bed that his body be Cremated, the
ashes taken to the top of FL Captain peak, in
the Yosemite valley, and scattered to the four
winds. The body presumably has been Gre
mated as requested, but his widow announces
that the plan of scattering his ashes abroad
in the great wonderland which Mr. Lane low
ed so we'll has been abandoned as the family
thought such course would be sacriIege:
The ethics involved in the violation OF
dying request so unconventional as that of the
former secretary of the interior raises one of
those questions which is likely to elicit many
conflicting views according to the predllec-
tons and habits Of thought of those who join
in the discussion. To many it would seem to
be the highest duty to carry out the wishes
of the dying, no matter how extraordinary
they might be- To ignore those wishes would
seem to such persons breach OF faith more
sacrilegious than to carry them out, however
contrary to the feelings and wishes of the
living.
There are others who would hold that all
that was mortal of good man, such as Mr..
Lane undoubtedly was, should be placed in
sacred soil where the final resting place might
become enduring memorial to the dead
and a reminder for the benefit of the living
of the noble qualities in the deceased so
worthy of imitation by all who might survive
him. And for the greater part of humanity
it is necessary to have some imminent and
perhaps material reminder in order to bear in
1t is not always SO, to be sure.
A great Georgia lawyer, who was man of
literary attainments and lover of the choice
nuggets of wisdom and beauty, once said he
had spent years in a vain endeavor to find
the author of the quotation, once used in a
speech by Daniel Webster:
The Avon to the Severn flows,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be"
The lines embody the historical fact that
the bones of the great English reformer and
translator of the Bible into English were dug
up, forty-four years after his DEATH and
thrown into the river which carried them to
the sea. So, although his ashes were thus
spread abroad wide as the waters be- it
would be bold spirit who denied the poets
implication that Wycliffe's influence was not
as far-reaching as the oceans waves and
tides, although ne had no final resting pace on
earth.
A definite request such as that of the late
secretary OF the interior that the ashes OF the
dead shall be scattered to the winds is in
many cases perhaps the expression of an alb
normal humility, a self-depreciation which
certainly was not justified in the life and ex-
ample OF Franklin K. Lane. 1t is tinged with
the mystic and the melancholy.
On the other hand it is normal and under
standable that surviving friends and relatives
facing the mystery of death and the departure
of the spirit that leaves only dust behind
should wish to cherish all that is left of the
mortal frame which once housed SO much of
life and light and beauty. The instinct to
build monuments and erect headstones and
to keep near us all that remains of those we
loved in life is an expression of the noble
impulse to pay tribute to departed virtue and
to hold back something from the gate of the
hereafter
Well worthy of repetition are the lines of
Wordsworth at the grave of Burns:
Such graves as these are pilgrim shrines-I
Shrines to no code or creed confined;
The Delphian wales, the Palestines
The Meccas of the mind"