Religion: Pagan Burial

“Why not give up our Egyptian funerals, and make them Christian?” Thus, in its current issue, the Protestant Episcopal semimonthly Churchman. Said the Churchman:

“If we truly believe that the spirit lives, and that the corpse is an outworn tent in which it no longer dwells, why not treat it so? But the Prayer Book still commits it to the ground from which it is supposed to come, where it is to rest until the archangel’s trumpet summons it to rise incorruptible. We once heard of a funeral which seems far more Christian. The body was buried—or, we trust, cremated—as soon as possible, with no publicity, and a week or so later a memorial service was held in which the friends and relatives of the deceased gathered, not about a dead body but a living spirit.

“Of course, all cemeteries should be abolished, with the pagan custom of visiting them, and the land used for a productive purpose.”