THIRD READING. (Hansard, 25 August 1860)

§ LORD MONTEAGLE

moved an Amendment to the 6th Clause, which provides that the measure shall not affect any existing suit or inchoate rights, extending the proviso to "any Question whether any Use, Trust, Gift, Foundation, or Disposition is or is not superstitious or void." 1812 The noble Lord said that his reason for proposing this Amendment was, that in every endowed Roman Catholic chapel masses were performed, and masses included prayers for the dead, which were superstitious uses; and, therefore, every endowment of a Roman Catholic chapel would become void, because it was for a superstitious use. Many of the members of the Church of England were in favour of prayers for the dead; and over the tomb of Bishop Butler, the author of the Analogy of Revealed Religion, was inscribed, "Pray for the Soul of Bishop Butler." The noble and learned Lord on the woolsack had pledged himself that the Bill would make no change in the position of the Roman Catholics; but they required something more than a mere verbal pledge from a Lord Chancellor, however eminent.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

could only repeat what he had stated last night, that he considered the proposed Amendment wholly unnecessary. He did not rest on his opinion alone that the present Bill could not in the slightest degree affect the question of superstitious uses. Authority equal to his own in the other House had also stated that the Bill could have no such construction or application. Moreover, it had been solemnly determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in a judgment pronounced by Sir Herbert Jenner, one of our ablest Judges, that there was no ground for saying that prayers for the dead were to be regarded as superstitious uses. To maintain that the building of a Roman Catholic church or chapel might be construed to be a superstitious use, because prayers for the dead were to be put up there, was absurd and extravagant. It might be said that the proposed Amendment would, at all events, do no harm; but words that were unnecessary were not harmless, because, instead of quieting they excited doubts, and caused, instead of preventing, litigation. The Roman Catholics ought to be satisfied with the Bill as it stood: it had been a subject of great anxiety with the Government.