HL Deb 13 July 1863 vol 172 cc615-20
LORD EBURY

said, the House would recollect that six weeks ago he moved an Address to Her Majesty, praying Her to appoint a Commission to consider what steps should be taken to obviate the scandals which arose from the present compulsory state of the law in requiring the indiscriminate use of the Burial Service of the Church of England. It appeared to be the unanimous opinion of the House, that the evils were so intolerable that they ought to be put an end to as soon as possible. Eventually the most rev. Prelate (the Archbishop of Canterbury) said he would do all that he possibly could to devise a legislative remedy. Unfortunately, while this matter was pending, the scandals went on as they did before. Only the other day, he received a letter from a gentleman in Warwickshire relating to a case in which a man had put an end to his existence by deliberately walking into a pond. An inquest was held, and the result was a verdict of insanity, and an order by the coroner for the burial of the body. The curate of the parish said he dared not read the appointed service, and the service was ultimately performed by a clergyman from a distance, who was ignorant of the circumstances, A similar case had happened in a more populous place. In that instance, the Burial Service was performed amid the murmurs of the people assembled; and when it was over, a woman went up to the clergyman and said to him "Sir, the man you have buried is my husband. You may say what you please, but I know that he is gone to hell." Cases of this kind showed the necessity for the Question which he now put to the most rev. Prelate—namely, What steps had been taken towards devising a remedy for the evils in question?

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

said, he had no difficulty in answering the Question. In the course of the debate to which the noble Lord had referred, he was asked to pledge himself to bring forward, before the end of the Session, a measure which would be satisfactory to the House. Such a pledge he declined to give; but he undertook to say for himself and his right rev. Brethren, that they were prepared to give their serious attention to this important subject, and they were resolved to ascertain as soon as possible the views and feelings of the clergy. In fulfilment of that promise, a large assembly of Bishops took place four or five weeks ago, which was attended not only by Prelates of the United Church of England and Ireland, but also by a considerable number of Colonial Bishops. A prolonged discussion took place, but no decision was arrived at; the meeting was adjourned, and would be resumed. Meanwhile, the Lower House of Convocation had, with the concurrence of the Upper House, taken the subject into their consideration, and their views with regard to it would be communicated through their Prolocutor. He hoped that when Parliament met again he should be able to inform their Lordships what was the result of the discussion of the matter, and that some satisfactory conclusion would be arrived at.

THE EARL OF DESART

said, he retained the opinion that the question should have originated with Convocation; adding, that no one could doubt the possibility of repentance at the last moment.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

said, after what had passed in Convocation, and the correspondence which had taken place on the subject, he did not entertain any sanguine hope that the bench of bishops would be able to lay before their Lordships in the next Session of Parliament any measure to meet the difficulties complain- ed of. No doubt there was every intention to meet the question fully and fairly; but if there was one thing more than another which came out clearly at the meeting to which the most rev. Primate had referred, it was the great difference of opinion as to the remedy to be applied. On the one hand there was a strong desire to retain the service as it was, and on the other a wish to make changes which did not seem calculated to meet the cases which were complained of. The burial service was used over three classes of persons—first, those as to whom there was no moral doubt that they were passing from the trials of time to a happy eternity; secondly, those about whom the clergyman could form no definite conclusion; and lastly, those as to whom very little hope could be entertained. A great variety of remedies had been proposed. The first suggestion was that discipline should be restored, that evildoers should be excommunicated, so that their position might be known during life, and the use of the service withheld when they were dead. Upon this he would only say that he did not think that any measure of that kind was to be expected at present. Indeed, a complete system of discipline could only be maintained in a small sect; and any attempt to restore discipline in that sense to the Church of England would result in denationalizing the Church. The next proposal was that a discretion should be vested in the clergyman, who should read the service or not, as he thought right. The feeling of their Lordships, a8 evinced in the last debate, was decidedly against giving such a discretion. Here was one instance of what might happen under such a discretion. A clergyman in the diocese of a right rev. Prelate who was then present in one case omitted the words "as our hope is this our brother doth," the reason why he did so being that it was reported that the person whom he was burying had died in a state of drunkenness. The matter was brought before the right rev. Prelate, who thought he was not warranted in the course he had pursued. The clergyman submitted himself to the judgment of the Bishop; and he was obliged to confess that the information on which he had proceeded was perfectly fallacious, and that there was no ground whatever for saying that the man had died in a state of intoxication, so that an irreparable wound had been inflicted on the friends of the deceased person without any gain to religion. Another proposal made was to vest a kind of joint discretion in the bishops and clergy in this matter. But with this scheme geographical considerations had something to do. Some Bishops were much more erratic, and were less easily found than others; in some dioceses railways were less numerous; and a question of Church discipline ought not to depend upon these accidents, To meet this geographical difficulty, it had been proposed that the Bishop's power should be retrospective, and that the clergyman might refuse to read the service on his own responsibility, and then throw the matter into the hands of his Bishop. But very painful consequences might possibly result from this arrangement. A clergyman might rely on the support of the Bishop, and in the end find himself disappointed and deprived of that support. Another proposition found favour with a great many people—that there should be an explanatory or declaratory rule or declaration inserted in the articles, stating that the words of hope were only general words, and ought not to be taken as a judgment upon the state of the particular individual. But he thought it very unsafe to say that words were not to be taken in their natural meaning. It was impossible to say that these words did not express a very high strain of hope in the future happiness of the deceased person. He was sorry to weary their Lordships, but it was impossible, without going through these suggestions, to point out the difficulties of the case. Another suggestion, and one of the most practical, which had been forwarded to him by a clergyman, was the following:—That the service for communicants should be exactly the same as at present; but that in the case of persons who had voluntarily excluded themselves from communion, a service should be prepared for them in which there should be no allusion to the deceased person, but only words of general recognition of the hope of immortality. He now came to the suggestion of the noble Lord (Lord Ebury). Their Lordships had been told in the last debate on this subject that the remedy for all our difficulties was to be found in the American Prayer Book; and they had been told that the American service might be read over the most reprobate criminals—such as a burglar who had been killed in the act of committing a burglary. The words were these— Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God in His infinite mercy to take out of the world the soul of our dear brother, we commit his body to the ground—earth to earth—ashes to ashes—dust to dust— looking for the general resurrection and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he appealed to their Lordships whether such a service could be considered applicable to such a case? If they had to deal with the case of a criminal such as he had mentioned, the only service to be used must be a service of profound silence. The hope of a general resurrection ought not to be suffered to apply to these cases at all. To say that these words would make all our difficulties easy was a complete mockery. No doubt the difficulties which attended the question were very great. He had honestly considered the subject, to redeem the pledge given in a former debate, but he could not say that he was prepared at present with any suggestion. He thought it would be inconvenient if the House were to separate with any idea that a pledge existed on the part of any Member of their Lordships' House that a measure would be brought forward again next Session. He did not believe that any recommendation tending to remove this difficulty would emanate from the bench of Bishops, or that any improvement could be expected to emanate from a Royal Commission.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, he greatly regretted that the most rev. Prelate should hold out no hope of a solution of the difficulties to which he alluded, and thought it would be a very great mistake to give up the matter in despair.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

said, he did not wish it to be understood that all consideration of the question must be abandoned. He wished simply to convey that no pledge could be given that a satisfactory solution would be found before next Session.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, he still entertained the opinion that it would be a great mistake to give up the matter in despair; and he was not without hope that a solution of this difficulty which would prove generally acceptable would ultimately be arrived at.

THE BISHOP OF EXETER

(who was very imperfectly heard, and who spoke the latter part of his speech from his seat) said, he had frequently hoped that some solution of this difficulty would be discovered, but at present he entertained no such hope. At the same time, he knew that his Friend the most rev. Prelate would do his utmost to give the subject the most deliberate and anxious consideration; and there was no part of Her Majesty's subjects whom the bench of Bishops would be so glad to satisfy in this matter as their Lordships. But he did not think that any solution of the question would be arrived at when Convocation took it into consideration after the recess. If it were possible, he hoped they might get out of this dilemma. Were they prepared to say that the burial service should not continue as an expression of Christian hope over those who were brought to the grave. ["No!"] He thanked their Lordships for that expression of opinion. That being so, they must regard it as an essential part of the funeral service that it should contain the express language of Christian hope. But was that language to be used indiscriminately? It had been suggested that the use of this expression of hope should be left to the discretion of the clergyman. He sincerely hoped that this would never be, that there would never be an inquisitio post mortem at the grave. Then came the question of whether a clergyman who omitted to use the service should be made liable to punishment. He hoped the matter would in this respect be left as it was. At present a clergyman who omitted to peform the service was liable to ecclesiastical proceedings. And so it ought to be. The question then arose, whether a clergyman would lay himself open to ecclesiastical punishment who professed himself unable to use this language over men men who had cast off their Christian allegiance, or who had died, it might be, blaspheming their Redeemer. The utmost punishment that could be inflicted on a clergyman for such an offence was not a heavy one—it consisted of suspension for three months; and he could not doubt that in cases of this kind, where the clergyman admitted his offence against the law, and submitted himself to his bishop to award his sentence, that sentence would be a lenient one. He thought the matter should be left there, unless they were prepared altogether to eliminate the language of hope from the service.