Burial Service

During a conversation on the various sanitary measures now projecting in the metropolis, and particularly on the idea lately started of re-introducing the ancient practice of burning the bodies of the deceased, one of our company remarked that the words "ashes to ashes," used in our present form of burial, would in such a case be literally applicable; and a question arose why the word "ashes" should have been introduced at all, and whether its introduction might not have been owing to the actual cremation of the funeral pyre at the burial of Gentile Christians? We were none of us profound enou…