The religious denominations in the United States: their history, doctrine, government and statisticsWith a preliminary sketch of Judaism, paganism and Mohammedanism . of populous cities, notonly in a physical, but evenin a moral point of view,must be too obvious to re-quire any specification natural tendency togenerate and diffuse infec-tion, has often been alarm-ingly and fatally felt; whilethe practice of burying inchurches, and places appro-priated for religious worship, seems to be peculiarly reprehensible—not merely on account of the superstitious feelings in which the customor
The religious denominations in the United States: their history, doctrine, government and statisticsWith a preliminary sketch of Judaism, paganism and Mohammedanism . of populous cities, notonly in a physical, but evenin a moral point of view,must be too obvious to re-quire any specification natural tendency togenerate and diffuse infec-tion, has often been alarm-ingly and fatally felt; whilethe practice of burying inchurches, and places appro-priated for religious worship, seems to be peculiarly reprehensible—not merely on account of the superstitious feelings in which the customoriginated, but from the glaring violation of propriety, and often of de-cency, involved in making the same place a receptacle for both theliving and the dead, as well as the injurious consequences to the healthof society necessarily arising out of such a strange combination. It isrecorded, that on preparing a grave for a person of rank in one of thechurches of Nantes, the body of a near relation, who had died ninemonths before was displaced, and the coffin accidentally shattered, fromwhich an infectious principle instantly diffused itself with such viru- 1013. 1014 Christian Cemeteries. lence, that no less than fifteen persons who attended the funeral diedwithin eight days. Nor is the moral effect of such a state of things a matter of trivialconsideration—for if the idea of death is calculated to exert a powerfuland salutary influence on the conduct of life, it must not be renderedtoo familiar, by being indecorously blended with the scenes and ob-jects of our common intercourse, nor disgusting, by an indecent expo-sure of its loathesomeness. Every thing connected with it, should besolemn and impressive ;— Still, and silent as the grave are prover-bial expressions with us—and in such stillness the heart is both atleisure and disposed to hold serious communion with itself; but whereis the stillness or solemnity of death, where the funeral obsequies areperformed amid the no
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdeca, booksubjectreligions, booksubjectsects
