30 CREMATION. 



Those elements no longer required by the dead are quickly set at 

 liberty in gaseous form, ascending like aerial springs into the sea of 

 the atmosphere, thence to be absorbed by animal and vegetable life, 

 just as the ocean receives the polluted waters of rivers, only to purify 

 and send them back, to run again in ceaseless circles, a never-ending 

 journey. 



Decomposition of the dead must surely be one of the most merciful 

 of the Creator's provisions for the living. But for it, it would only be 

 a question of time as to how long life could be sustained ; for, 

 sujiposing life to have commenced and continued its course by draw- 

 ing upon a fixed and uurenewable quantity of matter, it would long 

 since have shown signs of local, if not general exhaustion, resulting 

 in a final extinction of living forms. 



In all countries plants and animals have in vast numbers, and 

 endless variety, become extinct, whilst of those still surviving many 

 show indisputable signs of an extinction more or less remote. 



Bide by side with these, other forms have arisen in apparently 

 undiminished numbers and variety, destined, like those which have 

 gone before, to make room for others, which posterity must be left to 

 study. However this may be, the huinan race does not yet excite a 

 widespread interest on the score of extinction. 



Man's extraordinary and unique power of adaptability to his 

 environment, in nearly every climate which his insatiable curiosity 

 leads him to explore, appears to ensure for him an endless succession 

 of descendants, each possessing some modification of that which gave 

 him birth, a constant modification being associated with the greatest 

 vitality. 



Go to the mountain stream, and, where it issues forth in all its 

 sparkling freshness, ask it whence it cometh and whitlier it goeth ? 

 What will it say, and truly say, to the student of Nature? " I come 

 from the avalanche ; an iceberg I have been ; I flooded the Ganges 

 with its freight of dead and dying ; I come from the swamp, and the 

 ocean spray ; I moistened the grape, bedewed the grass, rode here on 

 the storm. I go to wait on life ; to search out the haunts of man, 

 whose pollution I will bear in my bosom to the sea of forgiveness, 

 burying myself in its fulness, only to rise again pure and free to visit 

 every clime !" 



In like manner question the human body. 



Listen, student of Nature ; and, like the river, it says, " I know no 

 rest. No rest is mine till the sun has ceased to work. I come from 

 the inland grave, and the salt sea wave. In the countless forms in 

 which I have borne a part, I have long since lost all trace of my origin. 

 The form of man is not new to me. I have shared in ail his glories, 

 all his crimes. The Mastodon, and greater than he have used my 

 substance, sharing it with all other forms of life, animal and vegetable. 

 Fire is not new to me. Heat is at once my jailer and my liberator. 

 When by its action I am freed from the bonds of one, I go to wait on 

 other forms of life." 



