BURNING OF Tim DEAD. All the nations of the world, rude and civilized, have, in every age, exhibited some remarkable ceremonial in the disposal of their dead. Some, by simple inhumation, have restored the body to its parent earth ; others have committed it to the waters ; and others again have reduced it to ashes, which were either collected as precious memorials of the de ceased, or dissipated in the air. In one respect, perhaps, this latter custom has been adopted, to testify the un willingness of the SUM ivors to part with all remembrance of a departed person ; and there are nations which yet preserve the corpse entire in token of veneration, or, de spoiling it of the flesh, carefully keep the bones. How ever, the necessity of destroying the body, or some reli gious rite, has probably operated as a more general in ducement. Cremation, or burning the dead, has been practised in Europe, Asia, and the vast continent of America, from the most remote period to which authen ticated history can reach : and although it has partially given way to other customs, there arc many places where it is retained to the present day.
Remounting to Jewish history, long before the birth of Christ, we arc told, that after Saul fell on his own sword, " all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took his body and that of his sons from the wall of Beth-sham and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there." The same is to be inferred from various other passages ; but it is doubtful whether Aza king of Judah was burnt, as gene rally believed, because it is only said in scripture that there was a burning for him—not of his body ; and Jere miah addresses Zedekiah thus : " Thou shalt not die by the sword ; but thou shalt die in peace, and with the burning or thy fathers, the former kings who were be fore thee ; so shall they burn odours for thee." Thus the burning of odours may have been some rite or cere mony in honour of the deceased among the Jews.
But we are better acquainted with the Greek and Ro man modes of cremation, from the histories transmitted to our own time. A lofty pile was constructed, on which the body was laid, various cereinonies ensued, and the whole was then reduted to ashes. Yet although the
custom of burning the dead generally prevailed, it wa not in universal practice : BAR were some al•.olute ex ceptions ; and in other cam s it depended on thee ircurn stances of the dee' a .L 0, or those of his relations. A the Romans, inhoits who had not got their first t«..th were never burnt, somew hat like the custom of Chris tians in deny ing cons•crated ground to those that perish in the earliest infancy. Those struck with lightning also Werc intermd, prol.ahly from thinking- it impious to commit to earl hly flames bodies w hich had been tout lied by the lire of heaven.
The ancients were more prone to a minute and syste matic performance of each of the different funereal rites, from the peculiar superstitions which they entertained. They believed, that unless the body was returned to the earth by inhumation, or entombed after being reduced to ashes, access was denied to tie Elysian fields. Thus their principal care was pious offices to the dead.
As the Romans believed that the soul forsook the body by the mouth, the nearest relative watched the moment of its flight to receive it by an inspiration. The eyes and mouth of the corpse were then closed by the same individual, or if a husband by the wife, and of a wife by the husband. Next the body was washed and anointed by women, with precious unguents ; and after a certain interval the name of the deceased loudly called, either from some superstitious motive, or to avoid the hazard of a premature death on the funeral pile, if the person was only in a swoon. Examples are recorded of those who were on the bier reviving, descending from it, and walking home in health ; and a noted instance also oc curred, where one, aroused from insensibility by the flames of the pile crackling around him, made an inef fectual endeavour to escape, and was burnt alive. The rings, which constituted a distinguished mark of rank among the Romans, were now taken from the fingers of the deceased, though restored before the whole ceremo ny of cremation was concluded.