FUNERAL CEREMONIES AND FREETHOUGHT.

Freethought Review, Volume II, Issue 18, 1 March 1885, Page 12

FUNERAL CEREMONIES AND FREETHOUGHT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘FREETHOUGHT REVIEW.’ Sir, —The unseemly proceedings at the grave of the unfortunate man Holmes, at Auckland, should serve as a lesson to Freethinkers. The spectacle of a parson and a .Secularist disputing each the other’s right to the doubtful privilege of reading a few lines of print over the grave of a fellow creature is not a pleasant one to contemplate. It is particularly unpleasant to Freethinkers, who claim to be more liberal in respect of ceremonies than Christians, and is, to my mind, calculated to damage the cause it professes to aid. I think the time has come when an attempt should be made to prevent the possibility of another scene such as the one under notice. Funeral services and funeral orations — the simple and short as well as the complex and lengthy— arc needless, useless, and absurd. The pcans of praise that are sounded over the graves of dead men arc mostly composed of lies. The man who never did a good thing in his lifetime is, at his death, as much respected, as far as funeral ceremonies are concerned, as the man who practised all the virtues and kept intact all the laws. The just and the unjust are equal in the grave —Nil nisi honnm dr, mortals. But I think this is a great mistake. If men are to be judged by their actions while alive why should they be praised for their misdeeds when dead ? If we wish to be honest we must have no more of these graveyard sensations. I am of opinion Freethinkers have no right to encourage any form of funeral ceremony whatever. Good deeds will always keep a grave green; and it

matters not how soon the weeds hide the resting place of the worthless. All that the dead need is decent interment, and this is all that Freethinkers should undertake to provide. Every attempt at ceremony risks a scene, and every scene damages Freethought. It matters not which party is victorious in the struggle. The Church reaps the benefit. If Secularists win then the Church can boast another martyr, and if the Church wins it counts another victory.—l am, &c., S. A.