n' doin' more for me than I could iver do for myself. 'Igh
Jinks is unchristin,--as unchristin as cremation, an' nothin's more
unchristin than that!"

"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Helmsley, surprised.

"What makes me think so?" And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of
reproachful dignity--"Now, old David, don't go for to say as _you_ don't
think so too?"

"Cremation unchristian? Well, I can't say I've ever thought of it in
that light,--it's supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the
dead----"

"Gettin' rid of the dead!"--echoed Twitt, almost scornfully--"That's
what ye can never do! They'se everywhere, all about us, if we only had
strong eyes enough to see 'em. An' cremation aint Christin. I'll tell ye
for why,"--here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly
on Helmsley's chest to give weight to his words--"Look y'ere! Supposin'
our Lord's body 'ad been cremated, where would us all a' bin? Where
would a' bin our 'sure an' certain 'ope' o' the resurrection?"

Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which
presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment's thought
restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied:--

"Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ
was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a
tomb."

"Out of a hurn?" demanded Twitt, persistently--"If our Lord's body 'ad
bin burnt an' put in a hurn, an' the hurn 'ad bin took into the 'ouse o'
Pontis Pilate, an' sealed, an' _kept till now_? Eh? What d'ye say to
that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn't a bin no savin' grace o'
Christ'anity at all! An' that's why I sez cremation is unchristin,--it's
blaspheemous an' 'eethen. For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples
arter he came out o' the tomb--'Behold my hands and my feet,--handle me
and see,'--an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said--'Reach hither thy hand
and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David,
you mark my words!--them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is
just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all
the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more,
'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother
earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman
souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which
do give Him grateful praise an' thanks