Page:A contribution to the settlement of the burials question.djvu/7



following pages are not addressed to one-sided partizans, but to those who honestly wish to ascertain what is the right thing to do, and then to do it. They are written with the desire of finding out how far the views of the opposing parties coincide, where they diverge, what is the cause of the divergence, and how far it is possible to bring them back to coincidence again. It is certain that there must be a right course to be pursued; why should it be impossible to find out what that course is, and for all right-minded people to agree in it?

A brief statement of the actual state of the case will be the best thing to start with.

By the present law of England, the provision made for the burial of the dead is of a twofold nature. In most of the towns and considerable populations, there are cemeteries in which Churchmen and non-Churchmen have equal rights of sepulture according to the rites of the community to which they respectively belong. And this provision is said to apply, at the present time, to about 14,000,000 of the population of England and Wales. For the remaining 8,000,000, the provision is of a different character. Here the churchyards are the provision which the State makes for the burial of the dead, by giving to every one the right to be buried in the churchyard of the parish in which he