CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BURIAL
There is a hard and shallow philosophy which regards it as a matter of complete indifference what becomes of the body after the soul has left it and affects contempt of all funeral ceremonies. But the instincts of mankind are wiser. In ancient times it was considered one of the worst of misfortunes to miss decent burial; and, although this sentiment was mixed with superstition, there was beneath it a healthy instinct. There is a dignity of the body as well as of the soul, especially when it is a temple of the Holy Ghost; and there is a majesty about death which cannot be ignored without loss to the living.[1] It is with a sense of pain and humiliation, as if a dishonour were being done to human nature, that we see a funeral at which everything betokens hurry, shabbiness and slovenliness. On the contrary, the satisfaction is not morbid with which we see a funeral conducted with solemnity and chaste pomp. And, when someone falls whose career has been one of extraordinary achievement and beneficence, and who has become
On fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a nation's hope,
The centre of a world's desire,
then, as the remains are borne amidst an empire's lamentation to rest "under the cross of gold that shines over river and city," and the tolling bells and echoing cannon sound over hushed London, and the silent masses line the streets, and the learned and the noble stand uncovered around the open grave, it would be a diseased and churlish mind which did not feel the spell of the pageant.
Thus ought the great, the wise and the good to be buried. How then was
He buried whom all now agree to call the Greatest, the Wisest and the
Best?