Many other groundless objections have been imported into the cremation question. For instance, some demur to burning because the body of our Saviour was not so treated. Can anything be more puerile than this when once it is examined? Our Saviour's body was not burnt simply because HE was a Jew, and the Jews practised burial in sepulchres. HE performed several of HIS greatest miracles owing to this very practice. But if we are to follow the prototype so closely, why do we practise burial in the earth? And why do we not lay our dead in roomy sepulchres? I have perused most, if not all, of the religious objections which have been urged against cremation, and I humbly say that they appear to me to be outside the pale of argument altogether. They rank only as very respectable crotchets, and never rise above mere sentiment. The truth is, that the question of burying the dead or of burning them ought never to have been made, if ever it has seriously been made, a religious question. As professing Christians we should take the advice of a late writer, and take care that the burning of the dead does not fall into altogether infidel hands, and so become at last a symbol of irreligion.[25] It would be wise also to commence adding to the Hymnals[26] compositions which would suit the new and more rational order of things, and so prepare the weaker brethren for what one cannot help calling the inevitable. [25] I. O. in 'Church Review.' [26] Cremation has already been made the subject of verse upon the Continent. Dr. Moretti, of Cannero, in the 'Annali di Chimica,' 1872, has given to the world some excellent verses; and Professor Polizzi, in a poem published at Girgenti, 1873, and dedicated to the memory of Dr. Salsi, has also eloquently apostrophised the subject. Some two-and-twenty stanzas in the Milanese dialect were published in 1874, by Civelli of Milan. I have also seen some German verses, signed 'Dranmor,' and a short but charming poem in the same language by Justinius Kerner. It is a matter of regret that those of our own poets who have been in favour of burning the dead did not enshrine their proclivities in verse. Southey, for instance, wrote that the custom of interment 'makes the idea of a dead friend more unpleasant. We think of the grave, corruption, and worms: burning would be better.' But he left us no poetry on the subject.