CREIL — CREMATION true work of his episcopate was positive, not negative; and the gifts which made him a good historian made him also a great bishop. He knew how to rule, and he ruled in stately fashion, wearing cope and mitre on great occasions. All who came to consult him found him a tenderhearted and sympathetic counsellor, whose fatherly wisdom was only the more conspicuous for its unassuming simplicity and its sound common sense. His chairmanship turned the London Church Congress of 1899, which had been regarded as a doubtful experiment, into an unqualified success. He realized as few did the office and message of the English Church in Christendom, and its witness on behalf of something greater than either sectarianism or undenominationalism. He was never tired of reiterating the essential truths to which the English Church bears witness, of directing attention to the great principles which underlie details of practice. Here too his position lay open to obvious misunderstanding, as being a mere glorification of insular Anglicanism. But his discernment of the truths which the English Church aims at presenting never blinded him to the faults of the presentation, and no man was less insular than he. There was yet another side to his work which was wider still. His interests and his sympathies extended to every side of human life; and from the first he took a foremost part in almost every good work that went on in his diocese, social or educational, political or religious. To describe this in detail would be impossible; but it went on continuously, and through it his influence with thinking men and women increased steadily. Ho period could well have been fuller of fruitful work than the four years of his episcopate, and certainly nothing could have been fuller of promise for the future. But the promise was not destined to be fulfilled. By degrees the work, and especially the routine work, began to tell on him. He fell seriously ill in the late summer of 1900, and the illness developed into ulceration of the stomach. At length, on 14th January 1901, he passed away, and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral on January 17. Bishop Creighton’s publications are too numerous to be spoken of in detail; they range in size from an excellent little primer of Roman History to his History of the Papacy, a work of great and enduring value. He was a notable preacher: a Greek ecclesiastic who heard him frequently, knowing then little English, said that there were two words which recurred constantly in his sermons, sympathy and character; and the implied description is a true one. He was a man of striking presence, with a resonant voice, and clear-cut delicate features, recalling those of the great Englishmen of Tudor days. He was a man of such unusual brilliance (people used to call him “ the Admirable Crichton ”) that many failed to see all that lay beneath it. His irrepressible and often daring humour, his frank distaste for much conventional religious phraseology, and his readiness to accept people at their own standard and make the best of them, caused him to be little appreciated by some good people. But beneath it all there was profound wisdom and piety, extraordinarily wide sympathy, and a holy love of truth. He grew visibly with each new call upon him, and few modern bishops have made so wide and so deep an impression on their age as he did. (w. e. co.)
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the earlier parts of which date from the 12th century, and there are ruins of a collegiate church of St Everemont on an island in the river, and some traces of a castle built by Charles V. The port traffic in 1899 amounted to 41,185 tons. Population (1881), 7099; (1901), 9123.
Cremation.—A brief but interesting summary of the ancient usages among difierent nations in relation to the disposal of the body after death, and particularly to that by cremation, is given in the ninth edition of this work; and a few particulars are added of its introduction into the United Kingdom at an early period. It is the design of the present writer to continue the narrative to the present date. As there stated, Sir Henry Thompson was the first to introduce the practice, and to perform it experimentally on animals; advocating the procedure in an article which appeared in the Contemporary Review of January 1874, which excited considerable notice at home and abroad. He had seen Brunetti’s results at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, and his own were obtained in the manner described. At a very early date steps were taken to form an English Society to promote the practice of cremation. A declaration of its objects was drawn up and signed on 13th January 1874 by the following persons :—Shirley Brooks, William Eassie, Ernest Hart, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, G. H. Hawkins, Jolm Cordy Jeaffreson, F. Lehmann, C. F. Lord, W. Shaen, A. Strahan, Henry Thompson, Major Vaughan, Rev. C. Voysey, and T. Spencer Wells; and they frequently met to consider the necessary steps in order to attain their object. The laws and regulations having been thoroughly discussed, the membership of the Society was constituted by an annual contribution for expenses, and a subscription to the following declaration :— “We disapprove the present custom of burying the dead, and desire to substitute some mode which shall rapidly resolve the body into its component elements by a process which cannot offend the living, and shall render the remains absolutely innocuous. Until some better method is devised, we desire to adopt that usually known as cremation.” Finally, on 29th April a meeting was held, a Council was formed, Sir H. Thompson was elected President and Chairman, an office he still held in 1901. Mr Eassie was at the same time elected secretary.1 In 1875 the following were added:—Mrs Rose Crawshay, Mr Higford Burr, Rev. J. Long, Mr W. Robinson, and the Rev. Brooke Lambert. Subsequently, and in order of date of appointment, followed the Rt. Hon. Lord Bramwell; Sir Chas. Cameron, M.P.; Dr Farquharson, M.P.; Sir Douglas Galton; Rt. Hon. Lord Playfair; Mr Martin Ridley Smith; Mr James A. Budgett; Mr Edmund Yates; Mr J. S. Fletcher; Mr J. C. SwinburneHanham; His Grace the Duke of Westminster (on Lord Bramwell’s death); and Sir Arthur Arnold, L.C.C. On account of difficulties and prejudices which cannot be further referred to here,2 the Council was unable to purchase a freehold until 1878, when an acre was obtained at Woking, not far distant from the Cemetery. At this time the furnace employed by Professor Gorini of Lodi, Italy, appeared to be the best for working with on a small scale; and he was invited to visit this country to superintend its erection. This was completed in 1879, and the body of a horse was cremated rapidly and comCreil, a town of France, arrondissement of Senlis, in pletely without any smoke or effluvia from the chimney. the department of Oise, on the river Oise, 22 miles in direct Ho sooner was this successful step taken than the President line south-east of Beauvais, and an important junction 1 This was the first society formed in Europe for the promotion of on the railway from that place to Paris. The manufacture cremation. . 2 of machinery, heavy iron goods and nails, and copper and For a full account of these, see Modern Cremation: Its History iron founding, are important industries; earthenware is and Practice to the Present Date. By Sir H. Thompson, Bart., also manufactured. The church is a mediaeval structure, F.R.C.S., &c. Fourth edition. Smith & Elder, Waterloo Place, 1901.
