On the whole, the ancient practice was, perhaps, the
preferable one; but Nature has made it very difficult for us to do
anything pleasant and satisfactory with a dead body. God knows best; but
I wish he had so ordered it that our mortal bodies, when we have done
with them, might vanish out of sight and sense, like bubbles. A person
of delicacy hates to think of leaving such a burden as his decaying
mortality to the disposal of his friends; but, I say again, how
delightful it would be, and how helpful towards our faith in a blessed
futurity, if the dying could disappear like vanishing bubbles, leaving,
perhaps, a sweet fragrance diffused for a minute or two throughout the
death-chamber. This would be the odor of sanctity! And if sometimes the
evaporation of a sinful soul should leave an odor not so delightful, a
breeze through the open windows would soon waft it quite away.
Apropos of the various methods of disposing of dead bodies, William Story
recalled a newspaper paragraph respecting a ring, with a stone of a new
species in it, which a widower was observed to wear upon his finger.
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