At a burial there is but darkness, at a cremation rosy light unaccompanied by fustiness; the dead is really reduced to ashes, and with him the time-honored saying, “Peace to his ashes,” is not a hollow phrase, as it is with those who are interred.
Those who do not wish to miss religious and other ceremonies at incinerations may use any form of burial service they like, and those who desire to dispense with them may do so. And those who already have beloved dead in the cemeteries may rest by their side when the end is come, for the ashes can be interred as well as the body.
A Sicilian poet suggested that along with the ashes thus buried might be deposited the seeds of some flower,—such as heart’s-ease, violets, or forget-me-nots,—so that when it sprung up, the friends and relatives might gather the blossoms from year to year as a dear memorial of the life that lasts beyond the tomb; and Tennyson’s (“In Memoriam”) poetic verses would be realized:—
“And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.”
Only when cremation is practiced, can a family obtain the remains (ashes, of course) of its friends and relatives who have died in a foreign land; only then it is possible to deposit such remains with those of the ancestors.
With the Chinese it is customary to always inter the dead in their native land; when they are far away from home they inhume their deceased temporarily, but at the earliest opportunity remove them to China,—a usage that deserves to be imitated.
The small urn containing the parental ashes may be taken by migratory man into the new world or the old, always preserved as the most sacred relic of the family.
How much more beautiful and better would it not be to have the remains of our kin near at hand, in the house. Only then we would be reminded of them every day. Every building could be made to contain a mortuary chamber. Then we would know our dead shielded from the elements. Now, when the storm rages and the rain pours down in torrents, we imagine that he or she whom we have recently buried is yet subject to the inclemency of the weather. Maxime du Camp relates a touching example of the power of illusion. On one of his walks in the Paris cemeteries he discovered a young lady kneeling before a tombstone, who was singing (interrupted frequently by her sobs) an aria from an opera. When she observed him, after she had finished she said, excusing herself involuntarily: “There my dear mother lies buried! She loved to hear this aria!”
That these questions which I have just briefly considered are of considerable moment is demonstrated by the experience of the Rev. Brooke Lambert, who says:—