How much more beautiful and better would it not be to have the remains of our kin near at hand, in the house. Only then we would be reminded of them every day. Every building could be made to contain a mortuary chamber. Then we would know our dead shielded from the elements. Now, when the storm rages and the rain pours down in torrents, we imagine that he or she whom we have recently buried is yet subject to the inclemency of the weather. Maxime du Camp relates a touching example of the power of illusion. On one of his walks in the Paris cemeteries he discovered a young lady kneeling before a tombstone, who was singing (interrupted frequently by her sobs) an aria from an opera. When she observed him, after she had finished she said, excusing herself involuntarily: “There my dear mother lies buried! She loved to hear this aria!” That these questions which I have just briefly considered are of considerable moment is demonstrated by the experience of the Rev. Brooke Lambert, who says:— “It has been my misfortune to lose four of my nearest relations in different parts of the world. It has been also a subject of regret to me that their remains lie so far off. I care little for the fate which happens to their bodies; and yet, had such a practice as cremation been in use, it would sometimes have been a comfort to feel that I had their ashes with me. Collected in an urn, they might either repose in columbaria, like those at Rome, or in a mortuary chapel in my own house.” This citation brings to my mind a beautiful epigram of Count Platen, who, as you undoubtedly know, was called the favorite of the ladies. It is impossible to translate it, and therefore I will content myself with mentioning the contents. It entreats the sacred flames to return, and to purify the air which death has contaminated; it requests those about to bury to reduce to ashes the body of their friend; and it rejoices that the remains of our beloved will again rest in a clean and decent urn near our abodes. There are many authors who, in their works, have expressed themselves in favor of cremation. Among the first to do this was A. F. Ferdinand von Kotzebue, a German writer of note, who glorified incineration in his novel “Die Leiden der Ortenberg’schen Familie.” There are those who are afraid that cremation will do away with all that is mortuary in poetry and song. For instance, they say: “What will become of Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard? Allusion to burial runs so inseparably through its verses that nothing would be left of them were it eliminated.” As a work of art Gray’s masterpiece will live forever; but if reason or common sense is applied to it, I doubt whether it has a right to exist, even now. I admit that the poem is beautiful, that it is grand; but it is all sentiment—nothing more.