EDITOR'S TABLE. 



369 



ment, a rancorous religious quarrel 

 aroused, expensive legal proceedings 

 entailed, and battalions of soldiers with 

 muskets and cannon, have at last to be 

 invoked to carry out the mandate of a 

 judicial tribunal. All this has resulted 

 from the action of an ecclesiastical body 

 which for centuries has pursued this 

 policy of using the graveyard and its as- 

 sociated superstitions as a means of spir- 

 itual domination and temporal profit. 

 Guibord was in favor of having certain 

 books in a library to read. His Church 

 declared that he should not have them 

 there. He adhered to his opinion, and 

 the Church then declared that he should 

 not have Christian burial. The appeal to 

 his superstitions was not strong enough 

 to move him, but it thrilled the com- 

 munity with a painful agitation, and for 

 many centuries such appeals and threats 

 have been powerful enough to intimi- 

 date and keep in subjection countless 

 millions of people. For more than a 

 thousand years the Catholic Church has 

 maintained its claim, against the civil 

 authority, to the ownership and custody 

 of the dead, and by attaching the place 

 of interment to the church, by prohib- 

 iting heretics from Christian burial and 

 making it ignominious to repose in any 

 but consecrated ea'rth, and by digging 

 up the bones of those who are alleged 

 to have entertained false opinions, 

 burning them and scattering the ashes 

 to the winds or casting them into the 

 floods, the Eoraish ecclesiastics have 

 not only made the church-yard a copi- 

 ous source of pecuniary emolument, but 

 " a vital portion of the material ma- 

 chinery for enforcing spiritual obedi- 

 ence and theological conformity." 



The history of the antagonism be- 

 tween the ecclesiastical and civil au- 

 thorities, regarding the ownership and 

 control of the dead, is of great interest ; 

 and a very able sketch of this subject by 

 an eminent legal writer will be found 

 in the present number of The Monthly. 

 It is part of a report on the "Law of 

 Burial" made to the Supreme Court of 



VOL. VIII. 24 



the State of New York, by Hon. Sam- 

 uel B. Ruggles. When Beekman Street 

 was widened several years ago, a slice 

 of land was taken from the " Brick 

 Church " property to be converted to 

 public use, and the ground thus appro- 

 priated embraced certain vaults long 

 ago constructed for the reception of 

 the dead. The question arose in regard 

 to the legal control and redisposition 

 of the bodies contained in these vaults, 

 and Mr. Ruggles was appointed as a 

 referee to take evidence and make a 

 report upon the subject. In this mas- 

 terly document, he touched upon the 

 historical aspects of the legal question, 

 showing that the old view, held by the 

 Roman and Saxon law, was that the 

 civil authority had jurisdiction in the 

 case, and that under the common law 

 the bodies of deceased persons are sub- 

 ject to the control of those next of kin. 

 The Church, early in the days of its 

 power, subverted this principle, and 

 under the title of " ecclesiastical cog- 

 nizance" established its exclusive au- 

 thority over the burial of the dead, and 

 even carried its assumptions so far as 

 to decree, not only who should be al- 

 lowed to lie in consecrated earth, but 

 who should be allowed to be interred 

 at all ! The part of Mr. Ruggles's re- 

 port which we reprint will be found 

 of general interest to readers, and in a 

 high degree instructive in connection 

 with the Guibord case. 



SCIENCE IN GERMANY AND ENGLAND. 



The influence of national character- 

 istics upon the pursuit of science is an 

 interesting subject of observation and 

 reflection. For while there is a broad 

 general agreement among scientific stu- 

 dents of all nationalities as to what 

 science is, and the mental methods or 

 processes involved in its extension, there 

 is a marked diversity among the peo- 

 ple of different countries in the organ- 

 ized arrangements for its promotion, 

 the feelings that impel its pursuit, and 



