A BISHOP'S VIEWS ON CREMATION.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 149, 12 July 1937, Page 4

A BISHOP'S VIEWS ON CREMATION.

Dr. Deane, Bishop of Aberdeen, speaking at the ceremony of laying dedicatiop. stoue at Kaimhill, uear Ruthrieston, Aberdeen, in connection with the construction of a crematorium, expressed sonie definite opinions upon the relationship of Christian priiiciples to cremation. "Like so many others of my goneration, I have been a life-long advoeate of cremation,,, said Dr. Deane. "I am glad to know that I share my opinion with the greatest divines and leaders of religious thought in the Anglican communion throughout the world to-day/1 he said. "This representative gathering of ministers of religion to-day bears witness to the fact that there is no principle in the Christian religion on which could be based any condemnation of the practice of cremation. "It is abundaiitly cleur that only a blind, childish, and ignorant superstition could condemn the practice of cremation as contrary to the Christian faith, while in our modern worldj with its vast population? crowded in great cities, the practice is obviously right and reasonable and good. It is only a grotesque and archaic superstition which could hold that constituent particles of the body buried in the ground will be feassembled and ref ormed by a miracle for which no reason or purpose could ever be adduced. No oue would have been more surprised than St. Paul to find that his teaching had been distorted so. Qur bodies are but a suit of clo thing, a drab and homespun suit of clothing for our v souls, often too threadbare to be endured. ""Whatever the spiritual body may be, it must'surely belong to a different order and exist uppn another plane in a different dimension than the dimension of time and space in which our earthly bodies are cabined, cribbed and confined." Bjshop Deane said that he had given directions that when his time came his body should be disposed of "by this most reverent and scemly method."