PROTESTANT "PROGRESS" IN GERMANY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 308, 14 March 1879, Page 7

PROTESTANT "PROGRESS" IN GERMANY.

£ f ISM m Germaa 7 continues to make rapid advances ; the n " o j , ces ' h , owe >;er, have a pronounced tendency in what is generally considered by Christians to be the wrong direction. On December xrl c«? Unous ceremon y «'as witnessed at Gotha. The remains of omZi , A a . clvi ,l cn S incer > w ere burnt in what the London Times PoH? Nt? s " the cremat i° n chapel of the new cemetery at Zt o^' .. * Rom tbis we shoulcl Judge that a special chapel is sacredly f'7.f. for the convenience of ladies and gentlemen who desire to inth remains disposed of by a crematory process. The burning Wo °«? err Sfcier was ia accordance with his last will and iLbcament. What, even to the average Protestant reader, will be a surprise, is the fact that the burial service was carried out by Protestant clergymen, There was quite a theatrical air about the whole proceedings. The coffin was set on a trap-door. The service over, me trap-door opened, the coffin slowly disappeared, and was convcyea oy machinery into the cremation vault. The vault, low and narrow niied with gas previously ignited, was heated to an extraordinary degree. In one hour and a half the coffin and body were consumed. So far the funeral conducted in the presence of and by these rrotestant clergymen looks pagan enough ; but what follows is still more pronounced. The coffin and the remains having been consumed, the vault was cooled off. The cooling process occupied two tj -\.. hen the "mourners" entered and collected the ashes of wv\ ( mm iTled, of course, with those of his coffin), in urns, >\mcn were deposited in an adjoining columbarium, as though they contained Eau de Cologne or some rare specimen of bug or beetle, i revious to the cremation a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. Herr fceydel, preached. In his sermon he declared that there could be no objection on the part of the Protestant Church to return to cremanon, though it was quite true that that custom ceased. Doubtless the rtev. Herr Seydel is right, The Protestant Church can do no less t Jan follow its founders ; and its founders set a startling example of cremation.— Catholic lin-ia: