Those who are friends of the reform should come out openly in its favor. Crematists who are on the fence, or who, perhaps, hide back of it, might just as well keep out of the combat between cremation and interment altogether; we have no use for them. If you believe in cremation, candidly say so, and tell your friends _why_ you believe in it. Moral cowards do a just cause more harm than good. Those who have tried to propagate the idea of cremation in an underhand way have invariably failed; the public must be brought face to face with the question: cremation or burial? To spread the reform in this country, I hope to see, before long, the birth of an American cremation association, to be composed of delegates from the various cremation societies of the United States. There is already a sufficient number of societies for the formation of a vigorous organization of the kind, that would undoubtedly aid greatly the progress of the reform. This, then, finishes what I had to say about a hygienic reform that will be the leading one in the latter part of the nineteenth century. There will be a long and warm controversy before the people will generally abandon a custom of such antiquity as earth-burial; but cremation will supersede it in the end. The present style of burial does not do any one any good. On the contrary, it destroys hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives every year. A good many deaths due to graveyard gases or water contamination by cemetery effluvia escape observation, since the real cause of the decease is seldom suspected. Incineration, however, does nobody any harm, and is in accord with the humane and progressive spirit of the age. Disadvantages it has none; and with the many arguments in its favor, it cannot fail to come out of the battle between torch and spade victorious in every respect. Moreover, it has the generous support of the scientists, physicians, and sanitarians of the times, which alone assures success. I close this volume with a prediction which will soon be realized, namely, that cremation will make more progress in the United States than in any other country of the world. Indeed, the progression will be so rapid that old Europe will open its eyes wide in blank astonishment, and wonder how it is possible. When we Americans once perceive the advantages and superiority of a reformation, we do not hesitate long to adopt it; and the time will come when incineration will be customary in the Union, and interment obsolete. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 1. Changed ‘during’ to ‘during their’ on p. 175. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors. 3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Subscripts are denoted by an underscore before a series of subscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. H_{2}O.