THELORDS AND THE BURIALS BILL.
NEITHER the Lord Chancellor nor the House of Lords were very wisely employed on Tuesday evening. The sins of the House came first in order of time. By a majority of 19 the Lords determined that the Burials Bill shall not apply to any consecrated portion of a burial-ground of which some portion has been left unconsecrated, nor to any consecrated burial-ground in a place where one or more unconsecrated burial- grounds are also provided. The reason alleged for this amend- ment is that the Bill is designed to redress a particular grievance, and that its provisions ought consequently to be simply co-ex- tensive with that grievance. In a great number of parishes there is only one burial-ground—the one attached to the parish church—and there Dissenters have a civil right, coupled with an ecclesiastical disability. They can compel the clergyman to bury them, but they cannot be buried by any one else, or with any service except that in the Prayer-book. In the case of a cemetery, the civil right does not exist, and consequently there is no need to remove the ecclesiastical disability. The Archbishop of York can hardly believe that any religious principle underlies this nice distinc- tion. If it is right to divorce burial in Churchyards from membership of the Established Church, why should the connection be maintained in cemeteries ? We will grant that the argument for abolishing this connection is not the same in the two cases, but to cling to the modern cemeteries while surrendering the old churchyards is to be pliable in great matters and rigid in small. The unwisdom of making a stand at this particular point may be shown by the arguments which have repeatedly been used against the Bill. The grievance of the Dissenters is really, it has been said, a sentimental grievance. When this is urged
as an argument for refusing any concession, it is intelligible, but the majority of the Peers, including the Archbishop of York himself, have ceased to use it in this way. By reading the Burials Bill a second time, they have admitted that a sentimental grievance may be a grievance which it is import- ant to remove. What, then, can be said of a policy which subdivides a sentimental grievance, and insists on keep- ing one-half of it, while abolishing the other half? The effect of the Archbishop of York's amendment will be this : Two Dissenters, the one living in the country, and the other in a town, will each wish to bury a dead relative in the family grave' in the parish churchyard. In the one case, there is no other burial-place except the churchyard, and there, under the provisions of the Burials Act, a Dissent- ing service may be used at the grave. In the other ease, "one or more unconsecrated grounds are provided," and there, under the Archbishop of York's amendment, the service used at the grave must be the service of the Church of England. The wish of the Dissenter who brings the body for burial will be precisely the same in the two cases. He will de- sire to lay it in the family grave. In the country, he will be able to do this without foregoing the use of a service he likes. In the town, he will have to accept a service he dislikes, or to forego interment in the family grave. A sentimental grievance exists in both cases, and we are wholly unable to understand the motive which recognises and redresses the grievance in the one case and ignores and leaves it subsisting in the other. It is impossible that the Lords can suppose that such a compromise will be accepted as per- manent by Nonconformists ; indeed, the safest assumption perhaps is that they feel sure that it will be rejected by the House of Commons. If the Archbishop of York has moved and carried his amendment merely to give the majority of the House a last taste of the pleasures of resistance, the case is altered, but hardly improved. That an Archbishop should come forward to propose the erection of a.
momentary barrier against an inevitable change argues a curious conception of ecclesiastical dignity. It is a part which Dr. Thomson would have done well to leave to Lord Randolph Churchill or Mr. Gorst.
The Lord Chancellor's contribution to the Burials Bill was a definition of what he understands by the word "Christian." If it is to him that the Bill is indebted for the original introduction of the word, he must be credited with a very remarkable notion as to what constitutes the sanctity of consecrated ground. Lord Selborne does not object to have any number of Atheistical or Positivist bodies laid in the churchyard, provided that they are laid there "in the sure and certain hope" of a resurrection which in their life- time they have denied. He is willing, and even anxious, to relieve the Anglican Clergy from the obligation of reading the Burial Service over an orthodox Dissenter, but he will not hear of their being relieved from the obligation of reading the Burial Service over Mr. Bradlaugh. This is too precious a privilege to be lightly surrendered, and though a cruel House of Commons may withhold it, Lord Selborne is re- solved that the House of Lords shall not let it go. In future, therefore, if the Bill passes in its present form, the compulsory use of the Anglican Burial Service will be reserved for Churchmen, Atheists, Positivists, and if they present them- selves, Jews. All other forms of religion may be buried with services of their own. What these services are to be it was difficult to say, even before Lord Selborne undertook to describe them. It has become much harder, however, since that time. Supposing the question, what is a Christian ser- vice, had come before a Court of Law, it is quite possible that the decision what does and what does not come under this description might have supplied some curious examples of judicial ingenuity. But we will venture to say that no human ingenuity less than Lord Selborne's own would ever have devised the extraordinary definition incorporated into the Bill on Tuesday. A Christian service will now stand for "every' religious service used by any Church, denomination, or person professing to be Christian." Thus supposing any one is prosecuted for using a service which is not Christian, the Court will have no power of looking into the contents of the service. They may be Atheistic, Positivist, Mormon, Buddhist, or anything else. The only question will be,—Has this Atheistic, Positivist, Mormon, or Buddhist service ever been used by a person professing to be Christian ? Let us suppose that a clergyman asks to see the service beforehand, or listens to it with a view of putting the law in motion if it turns out not to be a Christian service, and in either of these ways discovers that it contains an address denying the existence of a God, and something, purporting to be a hymn, which is inconsistent with any belief in a future state. He thereupon objects to this service, on the ground that it is not Christian, and is met by this answer :—" The service was used by the late Mr. Smith, an inti- mate friend of the deceased, in view of whose death, indeed, it was composed. Mr. Smith has been dead for some years, and, in order to prove that the service is not Christian, you must prove that at the time when he 'used' it he was not a 'person professing to be Christian.' If you fail to prove this, you will certainly be saddled with the costs of any proceedings you may think fit to institute." Of course, the clergyman will prudently drop the subject, and then Mr. Smith's Atheistic or Mormon service will be admitted to be " Christian " in the terms of the Act, by reason of the impossibility of disproving the allegation respecting Mr. Smith's professions while in life. This is Lord Selbome's notion of a " saf eguard."
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