A Reform Needed by A. Carter

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 3, 1910

A Reform Needed

By A. Carter

A. CARTER

In the Signs of the Times last summer was a plea for less expensive burials. This is a reform urgently needed both for the sake of the individuals immediately concerned and also for God's cause.

There were five hundred forty-eight deaths recorded in the REVIEW AND HERALD last year. Reckoning one hundred fifty dollars (a low estimate) for each burial, this amounts to sixty-eight thousand five hundred dollars. I am informed by one who knows, that in Switzerland twenty-five dollars will cover the cost of a burial. If it were the same in America, the expense last year would have been only thirteen thousand seven hundred dollars, a saving of at least fifty-four thousand eight hundred dollars. The suggestion in the Signs is deserving of consideration. Surely we should do something to control the excessive and needless expenditure.

The REVIEW not long since contained a very timely article on the necessity of greater simplicity in living. If there is any time when this should be more conspicuous than at any other, it is at the last solemn scene, when sorrowing ones gather around an open grave.

The Jews and Quakers set us an example in this respect worthy of imitation. One writer, Rev. John Snyder, commenting on what he designates as “our barbarous funeral customs,” has this to say of the Jews:—

“The orthodox Hebrews have a noble and simple method of disposing of their dead. The body is decently wrapped in linen and put in the earth in a plain unornamented coffin. They endeavor to express their conviction that death levels all distinction of rank or wealth. But we often withhold the body from the grave till it has become a menace to health. Then we enclose it in a casket, the price of which would support a poor man's family for a year.”

In reference to the simplicity of the Quakers another writer remarks:—

“The most impressive funeral service probably ever seen was held in a Quaker city over the remains of a good old Quaker. Not a word was spoken at the house or by the grave side, and the solemn silence and inarticulate respect paid the dead was almost unbearable in its impressiveness.”

But instead of Quaker-like silence at the grave, we think a prayer and the reading of a portion of Scripture the most appropriate expression of thought at such a time.

Sanitarium, Cal.