theirs with religious fidelity.

The usual expense of a burial among the working people is said to be
$100, Mexican, an enormous burden when the day's wage or the yearly
earning of the family is considered and when there is added to this
the yearly expense of ancestor worship. How such voluntary burdens
are assumed by people under such circumstances is hard to
understand. Missionaries assert it is fear of evil consequences in
this life and of punishment and neglect in the hereafter that leads
to assuming them. Is it not far more likely that such is the price
these people are willing to pay for a good name among the living and
because of their deep and lasting friendship for the departed? Nor
does it seem at all strange that a kindly, warm-hearted people with
strong filial affection should have reached, carry in their long
history, a belief in one spirit of the departed which hovers about
the home, one which hovers about the grave and another which wanders
abroad, for surely there are associations with each of these
conditions which must long and forcefully awaken memories of friends
gone. If this view is possible may not such ancestral worship be an
index of qualities of character strongly fixed and of the highest
worth which, when improvements come that may relieve the heavy
burdens now carried, will only shine more brightly and count more
for right living as well as comfort?

Even in our own case it will hardly be maintained that our burial
customs have reached their best and final solution, for in all
civilized nations they are unnecessarily expensive and far too
cumbersome. It is only necessary to mentally add the accumulation of
a few centuries to our cemeteries to realize how impossible our
practice must become. Clearly there is here a very important line