The battle between torch and spade is not new; it has been going on since early times. Tertullian, a writer of the second century, declares that many of the Gentiles were opposed to cremation on the score of the cruelty which it did to the body, which did not deserve such penal treatment. This is exactly what some are asserting now. The work of an ancient Greek poet even contains a passage requesting Prometheus to take back the fire which he had procured them. There was a time when the Pagans were disputing the propriety of burning the dead upon any consideration whatever. Heraclitus advocated cremation; Thales and Hippon, earth burial. In the war which a few Christians are now waging against incineration, we therefore only have another illustration of how history repeats itself. Peoples are still contesting the point in lands which are painted in Pagan black upon the maps of the missionaries, and where Christians as yet have no footing. Some sects in Japan bury and some burn their dead; some of the Hindoos practice interment, others incineration. [Illustration: THE BUFFALO CREMATORIUM. (Exterior View.) ] The injudicious promoters of cremation are among the greatest enemies of the reform. The utterance that incineration should be obligatory was extremely unfortunate, as was the idea of producing illuminating gas for general use from the combustion of corpses, something after the fashion of the twelfth century’s _lanternes des morts_. The fancy of Sir Henry Thompson to use the ashes resulting from cremation as a fertilizer was also a mischievous idea, and did much to delay the progress of incineration in Great Britain. The abhorrence entertained by many of cremation depends, to a very great extent, on the universal tendency of individuals and peoples to resent any interference with established customs; to reject any innovation, simply because it is an innovation. For instance, if cremation should be the customary practice at the present time, a proposition to re-establish inhumation would meet, I am certain, with the most violent opposition. The cremationists are now charged with enthusiasm and fanaticism by individuals who would be content that science should “stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon.” Most of the progress in all departments of learning has been made by enthusiasts, and a man must be an enthusiast indeed to withstand the prejudice “dry as dust” which yields the ground slowly and grudgingly, but which is certain to be defeated in the end.