CREMATION.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19460, 27 December 1934, Page 9

CREMATION.

i (To the Editor.) i e Sir, —Some time ago several cont tributors to your columns advocated . the establishment of a crematorium in a Hamilton, and the Borough Council - decided to consider It when framing the estimates for 1935-36. I hope it will not be lost sight of, for it is an urgent matter in all large centres of population, and the time should not e be far distant when every borough, in 1 the interests of sanitation and oom--0 munity welfare, should be required to " provide facilities for this method of 6 | disposing of our dead. e Cremation is rapidly gaining in y favour, old prejudice is dying down, > and church dignitaries are bestowing their blessing upon it. 0 Dr. Barnes, the Bishop of Blrmingham, recently wrote: “In common 7 with, I believe, practically all the I Bishops of the Church of England, I hold that there are no valid objections ' from the Christian standpoint against the practice of cremation. Further, I believe that in a country like our own, which possesses areas where the den'sily of population is very great, cremation is preferable to earth burial. I trust that especially in our large towns e the development of the practice of d cremation will be steady and rapid.” i. "In this country,” says Dr. David, - Bishop of Liverpool, “the cremation g movement is growing rapidly in spite of prejudice against it, which arises e from a mistaken belief that in the re- - surrectlon the identical particles of the earthly ,body are reassembled and t become the ‘body that shall be.’ But - a right understanding of St. Paul’s d words (i Corinthians xv, 37 38) e shows that tin's is not his meaning. He declares that each shall find a body of ) ns own; his identity shall not be lost but as the flower differs from the seed so shall the new body differ from the It , IS all ‘ e£K,y a Sreed among the best educated Christians that the quickest, cleanest and most seemly disposal of the dead is provided by cremation.” J Dr. Inge briefly asserts: "I see no religious objection to cremation Several of our ecclesiastics have reburied ” beCn cremated instead of From every point of view the argument is in favour of cremation as against earth burial, and I sincerely 7“ >“ 'Mil Sivc 10 othei provincial towns in the matter. I am convinced that- given he 1 acuities, the practice will ’gain in shnTn r, ,lm ,n a comparatively shot t period earth burial will bo the exception rather than the rule.—l am, „ ASHES TO ASHES Hamilton, December 2i, 103-1.