Nothing promises to prove more dangerous to the Bible and to the Bible Christians—not even the new Revision of the sacred volume by the combined ecclesiastical talent of England, than that eminently Hindu funeral rite—cremation. The more this mode of disposing of the bodies of the dead comes into general practice the more it is calculated to strike terror into the hearts of the pious and God-fearing folk who look forward to death, because of the resurrection at the last joyful summons from the Angel’s trumpet. But with cremation resurrection has become impossible. But since matters cannot be mended, and science has entered into a league with the heathens, even such a bigoted country as Italy, priest-ridden and Jesuit-ridden as it is, has taken the lead in cremation. Germany, according to a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, has also its own Cremation Hall at Gotha, a handsome and spacious building, and artistically inferior to only that of Milan. It has been in existence about two years and a half, and was built by an association or Verein of some of the most thoughtful and learned men in Germany. The correspondent adds:
“Fifty-two persons, five of whom were women, have in this space of time chosen such a form of burial (does not this sound like a bull?), one body being sent from New York. The cost of the mere process of cremation is about five pounds sterling, and the religious ceremony can be first read over the body. It is unnecessary to say that the Catholic priest refuses church burial to anyone electing to be cremated. Protestant pastors, on the contrary, willingly accord it. The cinerary urns bear the name of one or two Jews.”
It would be worth while determining as to who are the most consistent—the Catholic priests, the Protestant pastors, or the Jews? The correspondent thus concludes:
“I think few visitors will visit this cremation hall without being duly impressed in favour of a system so advantageous to the living, and, it must be admitted—at least, of France and Germany —also advantageous to the dead. Here, as in France, the law compels such prompt interment that in many cases it has been known to take place before the breath has left the body. In Algeria I have known personally a victim of this misapprehension; and my German friends all speak to me in warm terms of the new system as, irrespective of other advantages, preventing premature burial.”