If the Government do not introduce a Burials' Bill after
all, it may still be true that coming events cast their shadows before them, but certainly not that advancing shadows, however osten- tatiously visible, and however unmistakable they may be in outline, are necessarily any sure pledges of the events they prefigure. All the world, from Bishops downwards, have been discussing the Burials Bill all the vacation, and the discussion was never hotter than just at present, but there is as yet no official or officious assurance of the Bill. The Bishops, for the most part, act according to their wont, and hedge. They say that if there be any grievance, it ought to be remedied ; that, for their parts, they are not clear that there is any grievance, but that if there be, something should be done, —they give out, in short, the kind of oracle which influences no- body, and rather discredits themselves. Of this type was the Bishop of Carlisle's noble dictum :—" The ground which I think ought to be taken with regard to the present law is this,—tell us who are in possession of the ground, what you propose in the way of change, and we will tell you whether we can accept it,"—which is, we take it, a pompous way of evading the question.
seldom now are Bishops leaders ; they seem to think themselves overseers in this sense, that it is their duty to overlook, not to oversee, the struggles which go on before their eyes, and to avoid taking a side.
