In The Interior, Dr. William C. Gray writes thus sensibly
It was once my duty to remove the remains of a friend to a new cemetery. The body had been laid away in a cemented vault at the bottom of the grave, with the possibility of removal in view, and had rested there thirty years. All that remained of it was the frame and a little black earth; and as I gazed upon it, this question of the resurrection of the dead came absorbingly upon me: Why should God have need of this dust because it happened to be temporarily in use by my friend when he died? Why is it any more sacred to the resurrection than the dust which he had used and worn out and cast away in the ordinary waste and renewal of his bodily tissues? His person had been complete, and his identity complete before he had come into possession of a single particle of this dust; why should his person not be complete and his identity perfect after he had cast aside every particle of it? The truth appears to be that identity is not in the least dependent upon the materials of the human frame.
