*882.) The Cremation Question . 717 
furnaces, in a small spot of ground decently enclosed, will 
suffice for the wants of a populous parish. The expenses to 
the representatives of the dead would be heavy if an incine- 
rator had to be erected specially for a single corpse. But in 
case of the general use of cremation, as far as I can learn, 
they would fall below that of an interment. The purchase 
of the grave, the outlay for the coffin and for the tombstone, 
would be saved, and against these would come the simple 
item of fire. The ashes of the deceased might be preserved 
in an urn, which could be had for a few shillings, and which 
might find its place in the house of the relatives. 
I have now to deal with two objections of a sentimental 
nature. I am very far from desiring to treat them on that 
account with contempt, though I must regard them as mainly 
the outcome of misconception and prejudice. 
The many, of all ranks in life, feel disagreeably startled 
when they hear it proposed to dispose of the dead by fire. 
They forget that the most refined and cultivated nations of 
classical antiquity saw nothing revolting in consigning the 
remains of the departed not to the grave, but to the funeral 
pile. They forget, equally, the nature of the changes which 
take place after death. The corpse for some hours, or even 
days, after life has ceased appears sunk merely in a placid 
sleep, and may even look more lovely than in life. Fancy 
paints this state continuing after interment, and the mass of 
us speak of the dead still “ sleeping ” in their graves. Nay, 
popular tradition invests the dead with a kind of dreamy 
half-consciousness. But could those who muse over the 
sleeper follow him for even a week after the coffin has been 
lowered into its cell, they would see that the process is not 
sleep, but destruction — a destruction as complete as that 
which ensues during cremation, but more tedious, and 
passing through loathly intermediate stages which in cre- 
mation are absent. Could we but once shake off the preju- 
dices which have overgrown the European mind for more 
than a thousand years, we should soon be able to idealise 
the pyre which restores man to the elements, and the funeral 
urn which receives his ashes. Poetry would find in them 
themes no less touching than it has found in the tomb and 
its fancied sleep, or in the churchyard. 
The last objection is of a religious, or pseudo-religious, 
origin. Greece and Rome were, in their proudest and 
brightest days, what we call “heathen” nations, and they 
practised cremation. The Jews buried their dead, and, as 
we have derived from among them our national religion, we 
have come to speak of “ Christian burial,” and to brand 
