Speaking for myself, I must say that I think it would cause a strange
feeling in most people to part at the chapel-door with the corpse
of one who had been very dear, and, after a few minutes of horrible
suspense, during which they should know that it was burning in a
fierce furnace, to see the vessel of white ashes brought back, and
be told that there was all that was mortal of the departed friend.
No doubt it may be weakness and prejudice, but I think that few
could divest themselves of the feeling of sacrilegious violence.
Better far to lay the brother or sister, tenderly as though still
they felt, in the last resting-place, so soft and trim. It soothes
us, if it does no good to them, and the sad change which we know
is soon to follow is wrought only by the gentle hand of Nature.
And only think of a man pointing to half-a-dozen vases on his
mantelpiece, and as many more on his cheffonier, and saying, 'There
the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest!'

No, no; the thing will never do!

One of the latest examples of burning, in the case of a Christian,
is that of Henry Laurens, the first President of the American
Congress. In his will he solemnly enjoined upon his children that
they should cause his body to be given to the flames. The Emperor
Napoleon, when at St. Helena, expressed a similar desire; and said,
truly enough, that as for the Resurrection, that would be miraculous
at all events, and it would be just as easy for the Almighty
to accomplish that great end in the case of burning as in that of
burial. And, indeed, the doctrine of the Resurrection is one that
it is not wise to scrutinize too minutely--I mean as regards its
rationale. It is best to simply hold by the great truth, that 'this