Page:A contribution to the settlement of the burials question.djvu/14

10 funerals might be permitted. Leave, too, might be given to parishes to close the churchyard as soon as they saw fit, even if not full.

It is not the design of this pamphlet to give the details of a measure, but only to indicate the lines on which a measure might be framed, which would meet fully the wants and satisfy the just claims of the non-Church portion of the community without infringing upon the rights, or wounding the feelings of, Churchmen. No doubt many Churchmen would be sorry to give up the churchyard as the place of burial, but two-thirds of the community have already been obliged to sacrifice such sentimental, or? if you will, pious feeling, to great national exigencies. It is not, therefore, too much to ask the remaining third to give up their prepossessions for the sake of removing what a large body of their fellow-countrymen feel to be a grievance, and for the sake also of averting what would be a real injury to the Church, the handing over of our churchyards to every body, not only of Dissenters, but of Deists, Secularists, or Atheists, who may be included under the designation of British subjects. For it is obvious that any new Burials Bill must provide for the burial of all persons dying in England, whether Christians or not.

As regards the expense of providing Cemeteries, if existing churchyards are not closed till they are full, there will be very little additional expense beyond what must have been incurred by the enlargement of the churchyard; and in every case, if the parish is allowed to borrow upon the rates, and the period of repayment is extended over, say, thirty or fifty years, the expense will fall lightly upon the present generation, and will be distributed amongst those for whose benefit in years to come the Cemetery will have been provided.