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    iroa coffin takes up less space than a wooden coffin , and is so constructed as to prevent the corpse from being taken q ^ t , Thftt agfriii on , the 1 . 4 th April , in the preheat year > a written notice was given to the rector , churchwardens and sexton * of an intended fUneral on thie

    18 th , and a written answer returned by the church wardens , that they would not permit It ; that the demand for interment was made on the day mentioned , but the churchwardens refused to permit the interment , unless the body was taken out of the iron coffin , and forbade any grave to be prepared .

    The defensive allegation states in substance , that the account given by Gilbert misrepresents the transaction ; that nothing was said by Gilbert or the undertaker about an iron coffin in the first inquiries , though then informed that the parish would not receive one $ but Gilbert said , it was to be of wood *

    He paid the usual fees , and then declared it to be of iron , refusing to take back the fees ; that a Select Vestry being assembled , and informed of it , passed a resolution not to admit the iron coffin , and a copy of such resolu * tion was served upon the undertaker ,

    who threatened the officer who brought it . That on March 9 , a forcible entry was made into the burial ground and church-yard , and a disturbance created ; but the body was returned to the bone-house ; that the parish is large and populous , 30 , 000

    parishioners , and increasing ; annual burials above 800 , and increasing ; three burial-grounds , besides the church-yard , all nearly filled with corpses ; that they would all soon be rendered useless by the introduction of iron coffins ; that it is not possible to get a new

    burialground but at a great expense , and also at a great distance ; aud that their proceedings had been all guided and authorized by the Select Vestry , and by the parish at large . It appears that the suit was begun under great mutual irritation , which is now properly subsided ; and the

    parties have' agreed to take < the opinion of the Court on > the drfy question of right , without introducing with that question any imputation of the conduct on either side , or engrafting on it any deriiand of penalties to be inflicted , or of costs to be decreed . In this act of amnesty the Citfurt entirely concurs , and therefore forbears to repeat any

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    of the wanderings into which this case has strayed since the transaction which gave it birth * * ^ < ¦; , : Before entering upon the immediate question , it may i ^ ot he totally useless or foreign to remark briefly , that the

    most ancient modes of disposing , of the remains of the dead , recorded by history , are by btmal or , burning , of which the former appears the more ancient . Many proofs of this occur in the sacred history of the patriarchial ages , in which places of sepulture appear to have been objects of anxious

    acquirement , and the use of them is distinctly and repeatedl y recorded . The example of the divine Founder of our religion , in the immediate disposal of his own person and those of his followers ,

    lias confirmed the indulgence of that natural feeling which appears to prevail against the instaiit and entire dispersion of the bddy by fire , and * has very generally . ' established sepulture in the customary practice of Christian nations . Sir Thomas Brown , in his

    treatise on urn-burial , thus expresses himself ( it is his quaint but energetic manner ) : —* ' Men have been fantastical in the singular contrivances of their corporal dissolution ; but the soberest nations have rested in two

    ways , of simple inhumation and burning . That internment is of the elder date , the examples of Abraham and the patriarchs are sufficient to illustrate . But Christians abhorred the way of obsequies by burning ; and though they stuck not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives ,

    detested that mode after death , affecting rather a depositure than abst * mption > and properly submitting unto the sentence of God , to return not unto ashes but unto dust again / ' But burning was not fully disused till Christianity was full y established , which gave the final extinction to the sepulchral bonfires . The mode of depositing in the earth has , however , Itself varied in the

    practice qf nations ; ^ MifiiquidernS * says Cicero , t € antiguissimwn sepulturee genus id videtufi Z&iase fuo atoud Xen&phontem Cytus uiitiur . * ' TiHrt great man is made by that author to in his celebrated dyin ^ ^ ech

    say , ep , ** that he desired to bfc fouii ^ 'ttdt he r in gold nor In silver , m > r in my thing etee . but to b& iwrnedisiWly r ^ turiiett to the earth . : *? Wtuar ^ Stfy ^ tte , ^ i « to l be more bitssed than to Aix at t > noe with

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    696 Sir W . JSeott ' s Judgment on the Patent Cqffl ^ Cate .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1820, page 696, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2495/page/8/