OUR HOME LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 3798, 27 April 1875, Page 3

OUR HOME LETTER.

Mr Morley was the next speaker, and he dwelt on the impolicy of constituting the Privy Council as an infallible tribunal for doctrine, and placing creeds and even the outpourings of prayer under the sanction of Parliament. It was impossible, he said, to take up * newspaper without finding illustrations of the sourness, ill-will, and bitterness which the institution engendered. One day they found a clergyman in trouble for refusing to administer footed _ rites to a man, whom, on his own authority, he had pronounced a heretic. Then there was a case of a clergyman committed for trial for libelling a dissenter as a dissenter. Speaking of the past political action of the Church, he said the cleigy had been to a man on the side of King and Parliament m their endeavors to suppre-s liberty in the Junerican Colonies. They had hated and resisted every effort to reform Parliament. They had bated andQresisted every effort to extend religious freedom and civil equality. They lifted up no finger on behalf of the battle of the people for cheap bread. Coming down to the present time, it was only eighteen months ago that the ecclesiastical dignitaries prevented the passing of the Act for giving to the children of the poor the benefits of education, on the ground of wasting the money o the ratepayers. The country was, however, awakening to consider whether the salaries of these dignitaries was not a greater waste of money than what might be spent in education. If he wanted to civilise and regenerate Eng land, what he would do would be to allow each rector to draw his salary for life, and then appropriate the money to maintain a schoolmaster in each parish. The Bishop of Manchester had said such a project would be revo- ■ lutionary, but he would remind the bishop of that still more revolutionary proceeding which consisted in the expulsion of 2,000 clergymen without a penny of compensation, and the Wholesale appropriation of national property to one particular portion of the people. The Bishop of Manchester and himself, when youths, had been educated on the same foundation at Oxford, out of the proceeds of property which had been bequeathed for the training of pnests to suppress the opinions of the Lollards Was it not as revolutionary for the Bishop of Manchester and himself to profit by that money as to take money devoted to clerical purposes and apply it to education ? In conclusion, Mr Morley said if it were the case, as stated, that there-WCTe peowewjtbm the Church who were wily withheld, by Parliamentary countenance, by emolument, and social position from going •over ,to Rome, the sooner they went the on the above dalles, wTh&voi.hafl a great disturbance in {ptucqueßo* of a rtf bury a

mao. The Rev. J. Coley, vicar of Cowley, near Oxford, denied- not merely “ Christian burial” —bat all burial whatsoever, to the body of a professional cricketer named Merritt, on the ground that the life led by deceased had been “ notorious.” There was no other place of burial within the parish, and consequently the corpse was actually kept above ground for nine or ten days The feelings of the relatives of the deceased may easily be imagined Some of them waited upon Mr Coley at the church, after the conclusion of evening service, to beg that some other clergyman might be allowed to officiate; hut the vicar declined to see them, and locked himself in the church for about two hours until the arrival of a policeman. Under his escort Mr Coley proceeded to bis house, about a mile off, followed by an immense crowd that had collected in the meantime, hooting and yelling. The intended interce sion of the relatives having proved fruitless, the Bishop was appealed to, who immediatelv ordered Mr Coley either to bury the body himself or find someone else to do it; and the parish authorities, from mere sanitary considei ations, served a notice on the relatives to have the body immediately buried. At this stage of the proceedings the vicar wrote to the widow of Merritt that, having become aware of the deceased’s state of mind during his illness, he would consent to the burial; but declined himself to officiate, and expressly forbade the body being brought into the Church. The funeral took place eleven days the man’s death, the service being read by the Rev. Mr Green. In accordance with his refusal to allow the body to enter the church, the vicar had caused the doors to be locked, but they were broken open, the body was carried in and the customary service read. Afterwards the sexton refused to fill in the grave, which had to be done by bystanders. The Rev. Mr Green is said to have been repeatedly overcome by emotion during tho service, whilst the unfortunate widow had to bo supported by friends throughout the entire scene.

I have dwelt somewhat at length on the subject of disestablishment, because everything indicate that it has actna'ly become tho question of the day. So powerful a section of the Liberal party have devoted themselves to it, }hat there can be no hope of obtaining the consideration of other questions until this is disosed of. Church Defence Associations are very but they hardly do more than force on the consideration of the subject. Even victory will avail them but little, for the assailants of the establishment are prepared to suffer repeated failures, and consider that resent defeat no way impairs the possibility of future success. It is, however, safe to say that all their efforts are as nothing compared with the effect produced by such proceedings as transpired at Cowley.