Year: 1870

Certainly, burly John Bull grows more IN
steady in the brain with every year. With all
his mass of bones and sinews, he gives signs
of being "hurt atop" The waving of any
red rag now will drive him mad, like his name.
sake. The most petty irritation-a Mordaunt
case or Land question-is enough to make
him groan and creak in every member an
though he were going to pieces with a univer-
sal crash, like the One-horse shay. Jonathan.
with all his conceit, keeps his footing differ
emily. Nothing jostles him out of the path. You
may cut him into pieces by civil war to-day, and
he is busy and bilious and Dragging as ever to-
morrow you may throw the black blood into
the veins with the red, in his body, or give
him million OF two of Chinese to digest be-
fore breakfast, and he jokes with you for your
pains The fellow has the stomach Of an
ostrich, q healthy brain, and, best of all, he
knows what he is about. Paganism, Polygamy
Christanty-he wbittles out of all of them
rungs to the ladder on which he means TO
climb


TO John Bull these are stumbling blocks
over which he never can cross. Ii has required
generations to convince him that such thing
as Dissent could exist in the kingdom without
fatal injury to Church and State and now,
when he has digested the live Dissenter, hero
is the dead one to be disposed of. The
Church of England we are told, "is shaken
'tO its foundation by the mOmentOus question
(Which has arisen with regard to the burial of
"persOns outside, of her communion The
secular newspapers are wagng bitter warfare
about it a bill has been introduced into the
House of Commons TO appease the strife;
10, III I'd With h..
best fruits of their wisdom, but all in vain.
The dead Dissenter is more obstinate than the
living one, and persists in keeping his un-
handsome corpse above ground, between
"the wind and their nobility" What is
to be done with him9 The prejudces
with regard to dead people are
ordinarily strong in favor of burial In this
country we think nothing of digging grave
and putting man into livery sure that
Mother Earth will give kindly welcome to
her Homecoming child and that, no matter
what mischance may have befallen the poor
body here, in her bosom it will find warmth
and rest and quickening life again. Or if at
the grave we ask God, who has taken back
the soul again, to deal mercifully with us who
are left behind, we do not suppose the form
of words we use will interfere with either
grave or coffin at our feet. In the sacred soil
of England it is different. Dissenters obsh-
nately insist on dying, and, if the town be too
Door to afford a general burying place, they
expect to be buried in the parish church-yard
Now what prayers shall be said over themf
That is the question which "shakes England
"to her foundation to-day. A Welsh Metho-
dist minister. dying in this reckless and in
Coll nunH 70 ha Inv
thousands of his disciples, who requested leave
20 sing one Of their own hymns after the
| Church service was over. The law does not
allow this hymn. The Welshmen did not think
the body would sleep well without it. All
England is brought to a stand before this
question as against dead wall.


| The hymn is the straw that threatens to
break the camel's back. The Saturday Reuiew
comes like a Daniel to the judgment. That
Dissenters should be legally permitted express
sion of feeling over grave, it sOlemnly de-
cides, is impossible. Who knows what wild
excesses might take placef These Welsh
MethOdists might be dancing Shakers or
whirling Dervishes in disguise. Who knowsf
Yet naturally, Dissenters wish to be buried in
the Established Church yards, chiefly in the
hope that some future Gray's Elegy (Which
Dissenters are known to enviously admire)
might be written about them. This view of
the subject" it adds, " is not less important
because it may be called sentimental The
Reuiew has CLEAN of light. Why could not
| the Vicar, after convincing himself that the
| Dissenters were not whirling Dervishes seize
his umbrella, profess to be called to sick
parishiOner, and be deaf to any un-liturgical
noises which might arisel


| But England, we are confident, will treat this
trucking proposal with contempt, and grappe
with the mOmentOus issue fairly. We await
the result with anxiety, while the unburled
Dissenter remains, like modern Scinis, out OF
ground, and both earth and water refuse TO
receive him. Will they resort to embalmng,
and make mummies of these contumaclous
WelshmenP Is burning to be the only re-
sOurcef Or will they take hint from the
Chinese in California, and, loading ship with
the poor bodies send them to find some land
of freedom in which, if they could not lve'
they may at least be buriedf





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