The Seattle Star Newspaper, August 12, 1910, Page 7

\¢, X \ \ \) UUHAOEERO0 00000882 00000U0NTOOLOUORET AQUOS PUTA OT lo & sor grave of ote Of a gentle | Pie death she » As the bur ting to corrup and ine aptic nk h from the ish ul words re lips ’ OR THE WORF ©) OUR BFIOVED DEAD & “Aol RESTING PLACE . °F PA a BAB OOD aia Re, Wf the minister ought these terms caus- » Pal one who bad r > the dead girl, to = whisper & com a sad “lt is awt x hat « short time - thie beautiful for hat well endowed with send the graces of lif oul, wil x ae - Mirowsness; and © now € will be - ied in a x which forbids thon to upon with srror; if these remains could be - to utte disappear by the process of cremation - it would have been.” = much beit THE STAR—FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1910 — an l ~~ 6 eee | 4 oe a 1 dead. If you could see the burial vy Aust many ot condition of in Spain, and REMATION By ARTHUR A. WRIGHT of HOUGHTFUL opinion are expressing their views leaders on this subject. The unhealthy ward, where festering corruption that hideous monument of man’s ard for the living, must soon pass t There is no God-given reason for burial. ads of graveyards in the United The decaying bodies in the are a reproach to modern develop- It is a habit, fashion or sentiment Eitshould take its place among the things I mg to the ignorance and super- g is of past ages. ¢ are some people who are horrified W facts and new ideas; the history of Progress of human knowledge is to adead letter. Being incapable of ad ling the truth of anything they do not tand, they never suspect that they Wy understand nothing at all. Having bknowledye of the human body, and bemg ignorant the elements that com Process of decay in the ground, they Ose Cremation as they do all things that Rt the result of intelligent development fact or new idea in Progress. Eve arly aspect is ry very often looked upon M tnwelcome intruder. Man is slow Bhis conformity to human needs when he $in conflict with old customs, and on the disposition of the dead in any Way than that practiced by our fore Sascriminal. Creeds, dogmas, vul e dominant interests E prejudice and tl public | MMU of this life have always opposed intellec tual development. The question of sanita tion is not of interest to the ignorant. En livened bacteria, worms and vermin are the agents which bring the bodies of buried back to the surface and give them to the vegetation to which they once belonged; for in nature's storehouse noth ing The make up the body of a dog or a tree may lost. elements which today material have figured long ago in the structure of a saint or a philosopher. embodiment is not the progressive part— the material body nmist again return from whence it came. It is nature’s law. In the early barbaric times the bodies of the dead were often left w e they had died, without protection from the elements. Theré were no special sanitary reasons why their treatment should be otherwise Later some threw the bodies into the sea, and thought by so doing they had gotten rid of both ghost and body. Others threw them into the river or exposed them in such a manner that they would be de In voured by the wild beasts and birds. other cases the hair was first plucked from | the top of the head, in order, as they pro fessed to believe, to facilitate the trans migration of the soul. Then the body was cut into pieces and the bones broken into fragments by men who made such work their avocation. The remains were then scattered over the ground, The early teachings of the Christian church brought about a change in the man ner of disposing of the human remains. Belief in the resurrection led to the con- viction, shallow though it was, that the the | body was of some futuf use to the soul; that the temple of the Holy Ghost ought should placed in the ground in its entirety, and not to be disintegrated, but be summons fo arise at the The | though strongly opposed to the burning | there await the last great day early Christians, of their dead, did not object to the crema tion of those alive who did not agree with them in their religious belief Ignorance of what the human body is composed of and its process of decompo sition after burial is greatly the cause of man’s indifference as to which is better cremation or inhumation. The body of an average adult weighs about 140 pounds; of in the f amount there are 105 pounds of water lesh and blood. Water is a cx , oxygen and hydrogen nation of two gases Analyze the substance of our body and you will originally of four gase find organic substance composed Oxy? , nitrogen, hydrogen and carbonic acid—thus our | body is composed only of transformed | gases. Now, as soon as the vital spark has | left the body, disintegration sets in Th |} ga that formed the body return again | to their natural elements, ‘The only differ ence between cremation and earth burial is that one is a quick and the other a slow method of accomplishing. the same purpos« | —one swift and purifying; the other is loathsome decomposition. There is nothing pleasant in the destruc tion or the disintegration of the remains of those we have loved and lost, no matter what method we adopt, but fire is cleaner, safer and altogether more satisfactory in You placing of result than any other agent. will agree with me that the the | human body in closed masonry compart ments for natural disintegration is a nasty | ing the dead countries, where you find the liquid results 4 decomposition oozing through the wal you would say that cremation is preferable to nature's plan. There are no cremations where church, state and ignorance le in the same cradle. Russia, Spain, Turkey ind the South American countries all bury their dead It is not my intention to censure any religious denomination on account of tis attitude toward cremation. The task of the Church scems to be the saving nul a subject on which we have no advice to offer; but in our useful mission we claim that science has taught us the best way of reducing the human body to an innocuous element, and hope some day—-perhaps long ; hence ! the valu efforts and accord to our ”t the tribute withheld us in hi that if those we call dead not live in the grave, and they have n> more connection with the heap of earth in the coffin than with the dust that whirls through the streets If you could see the human bi i the process of decomposition has set in you would not want to be buried; you would be in favor of, cremation, If you could go into the dissecting_room and see the horrid sights of the dissecting table, you would not wish to be buried. If more were known about the human frame while }ments ot undergoing decomposition, people would | ror from the custom of bury It body hty yes, longer than turn with hot takes the human fiity, sixty, e years that—to decay. Think of it!) The remains of a friend lying under six feet of g@rovnd, or less, for that length of time, going slow stages of and all these remains through the bodic decay other this time being be iround manhood and old door of death, and and pass into womanhood; grow and near the during all this time the body which was buried in their in- fancy lies a few feet under the ground in this sickening state, undergoing the slow process of decay.. Think of thousands of such bodies crowded into a few acres of ground, and then-reflect that these graves, or many of them, in time fill with water, and that wate? percolates through the the drink. Surely there was, more truth than poetry ground to mix with springs and rivers from which we in Shakespeare when he said, “Graveyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out conta- gion on the world.” you could see the slain upon the bat- tlefield, gathered like dead wood and illow buried in s! trenches, or look into one iree hundred and sixty-five pits that « pen in turn, one each day, to receive the pauper dead of Naples; if you could see > Potter’s Field of Germany or the mil- Paris; if tacomb. in the ¢ of you could see the dogs of Constantinople make of the human bones in the cemetery there—I say, if you could see these repul- ive . hideous s , your mind would ever eV igainst earth burial, the n of the human remains. a reverent and offense- Cremation offe rs less method for the disposition of our dead. It is consistent with the tenderest senti- human love, with the require- ments of science, the teachings of religion and with the highest culture and wisdom of the times Cremation brings comfort to the living; by cremation the body can escape the cor- ruption of the grave, which subject brings | to our minds visions most horrible. Infants grow up | the roses diffuse their perfume. lhat which is should be made incorruptible by the purifying pro- corruptible cess of fire—by the cremation of our dead ind the placing of their ashes in the colum- 1} ’ ; a |} barium, or the scattering of them where re \ NN ry p)