“The ancient Romans believed in immortality, and yet they believed in burning the bodies of their dead. Urn burial was certainly quite as decent as the practice of interment; and urns containing the ashes of the dead were more picturesque than coffins. Can any one suppose that it would be more impossible for God to raise up a body at the resurrection, if needs be, out of elementary particles which had been liberated by the burning, than it would be to raise up a body from dust, and from the elements of bodies which had passed into the structure of worms? The omnipotence of God is not limited, and he would raise the dead whether he had to raise our bodies out of churchyards or whether he had to call our remains, like the remains of some ancient Romans, out of an urn in which they were deposited 2000 years ago.” It is a clerical duty to dispel superstitions. “Superstition,” well says Sprengel, “is the grave of science.” But it is not only the grave of science, but of all progress. The clergy should aid the latter and not place obstacles in its way. Colonel Olcott says:— “I am too firm a believer in the immortality of the soul, to view with patience the inconsistency of those who behave over the dead bodies of their friends as if the immortal part were being laid away in the ground. The more I might love my dead, the less willing I should be to leave the fair form that had once held an immortal spirit to turn into putrid carrion under ground, and breed a myriad of loathsome creatures out of its own rottenness. The attempt to substitute the scientific, poetical, and rational system of cremation has my earnest sympathy. I pray heaven that it may be possible to commit my body or that of any of my beloved to the pure flame, that in one short hour will purge them of dross as gold is refined in the furnace seven times heated.” Even the organ of the Mormon hierarchy, _The Deseret News_, that believes in an absolutely literal interpretation of the Bible, reasons thus:—