THE ENGLISH BURIAL ACT.
By Editor
In a recent number we noticed the fact that the burial act which gives Nonconformists the right to bury their own dead had gone into operation in England without any of the threats previously made being executed. The following from the Oakland Times, Nov. 13, gives further particulars in regard to it:— "The British mind is just now much interested in the new "Burial Laws Amendment Act," which was approved Sept. 7, and is regarded by Dissenters as the forerunner of the disestablishment of the Church of England. The measure has been fought over in Parliament for many years, and not until 1875 did Gladstone become one of its advocates. In 1853, when the Liberals passed a cemetery act, enabling burial grounds to be laid in any town, it in every case prevented the interment of a Dissenter in consecrated ground, unless the Church of England burial service was used, even if his deceased wife and children had been previously buried there. In 1861, Sir Morton Peto brought in a bill to permit the burial of Dissenters with a simple religious service, but it was thrown out. In 1869 Mr. Hadfield introduced a similar bill, which was rejected. In 1870 Mr. Osborne Morgan's bill was referred to a select committee and subsequently withdrawn. It was re-introduced and again withdrawn in the following year. In 1872 it was brought up again and ultimately shelved, and in 1873 it was again re-introduced and once more withdrawn,—from all of which we can understand how obstinately this measure of liberal ideas was resisted by the churchmen. "Under the new act now in force the incumbent of the parish no longer has the exclusive right of officiating at interments in consecrated ground. It is not necessary that any service shall be performed at all, but if there is any it must be Christian and orderly. Liberty is given to the clergy to use the burial service in unconsecrated ground; and in cases where any service at all has hitherto been forbidden, as well as in those where the friends of the deceased wish for it, a service other than that of the Church of England may be used, with the approval of the ordinary. The act does not affect graveyards in trust where the express conditions of such trust are not performed. Interments on Sundays, Christmas Days and Good Fridays may be objected to for reasons given in writing. The person in charge of the funeral is held responsible for the maintenance of good order, and every person guilty of riot, obstruction, or contempt shall be held for misdemeanor. "It may seem strange to some that a measure so obviously just, reasonable, and Christian, should have been so long and obstinately resisted in this most enlightened of Christian lands; but the traditions of England are the structures of many centuries, and are not to be easily overthrown. "The first interment under the new Act took place on the 7th of October in the parish churchyard of Beckenham, when a Baptist was buried by his own minister without the rites of the Established Church. The first Roman Catholic funeral in a Protestant churchyard took place on the same day at Prittlewell in Essex, a priest of South-end officiating and performing all the rites of his church."