LORD KELVIN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 76, 23 December 1907, Page 7

LORD KELVIN.

TO BE BURIED AT WESTMINSTER; or r*M3GßAPn—peess association—coptbioii?. London, December 20. Tho late Lord Kelvin will bo buried in Westminster Abboy on Monday. '

The Dean of Westminster has almost absolute control and authority over Westminster Abbey,- and no bnrial 'can take placo in that historic building without his permission. 'j;ho space available is now so limited that only in very, special cases is this permission given, and it has long been evident that in former, times tho honour of a tomb in tho Abbey has often been too .readily granted; No objection, can possibly be raised, however, to tho granting of this honour in' tho cose of Lord Kelvin. Ho has beon well called a "Prince of Science," and was also a sincere Christian, who deliberately placed.tho weight of his great authority on tho side of the Theistic interpretation of tho . universe—and ' after all, Westminster Abbey is a Christian, church as Well as the burying place of England's greatest men; It is in every way fitting that Kelvin's last resting placo •should be under the same roof as that of Charles Darwin, a princo in another branch of scientific research. Among tho many scientists, statesmen, and men of letters whoso monuments or mortal relics rest in Wcstminstec Abbey are Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Addison, llandel, Garrick,. Goldsmith', Macaulay, General Wolfo, Sir Isaac Newton, Herschell, find Charles Darwin. The Dean of Westminster (Dr. Armitage-Ttobinson) is a distinguished scholar who is in close touch with tho best modern thought, and he seems to havo had no hesitation in finding a burial place in the Abbey for Lord .Kelvin, i Referring to Westminster' Abbey, Jeremy Taylor, the famous seventeenth century divine, writes:—" Where our kings are crowned their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsircs' heads to take their crown. Thero is an acre sown with royal seed, tho copy of the greatest change from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to' arched coffin, from living like gods' to dying like men. There is chough to cool tho flames,' of lust, (o abate tho height of pride, to 'appease tho itch of: covetous desires, to sully and dash oat the disenabling colours of a lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty.; , There the warlike and tho peaceful, tho fortunate and the miserable, tho beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust and lay down their symbol of mortality, and toll all tho world that when wo die our ashes shall bo equal to kings, our acconnts easier, and our pains and our crowns-shall bo less."