Many millions of years ago the pollen of huge fern trees was
falling to the earth in the carboniferous era and making coal.
To-day, part of the backbone of the ox from Texas with the meat
attached is laid on the fire of coal made by those fern trees,
and the Texas ox and the fern pollen combined help to build up
your body.
That same body is three-quarters water, and of that water part
was once the Pacific Ocean; part, perhaps, was drunk up by a
whale before it reached you; and part floated in clouds over the
Southern Sea. ----
Your imagination can carry the picture as far as it will--to the
fisherman catching your sardines in the North, and the dark man
gathering your oranges in the South or your dates in some oasis.
We want to suggest this idea to you.
Since the body is gathered from all parts of the world, from all
corners of our little speck of the material universe, should it
not be scattered, at death, as it was gathered during life?
Is not the destruction of the body by fire far better than
hideous burial in the earth?
The body that fire destroys goes back to nature, instantly
reduced to its original elements. Is not such disposition of the
body more in accord with nature's laws and with respect for the
dead than our present custom?
Would it not be pleasanter to think that one we cared for had
gone back to the air, with only a handful of ashes remaining,
than to think of the dark, close, lonesome grave far below the
sunlight, clogging and uselessly occupying part of the earth,
which should be devoted to growth and cheerfulness?
HOW MARRIAGE BEGAN
HAPHAZARD REFLECTIONS ON GRAVE TOPICS.
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