The debate was enlivened by a comic speech from Mr.
Beres- ford Hope, who contemplated the probability of women per- forming the burial service, and pictured to himself the feeling of a clergyman on seeing "perched on a tombstone some holy Maenad, inebriated with pious zeal, screeching out the most ultra doctrines in the wildest accents," but was otherwise tame,—the Conservatives being well aware that there was no hope for the party of resistance. Mr. Bright's was the speech of the evening. He denied that even if sharing the Churchyards should even- tually lead to sharing the Churches, that would be any great evil, as it constantly happened on the continent of Europe, without causing any sort of strife or jealousy. But this was a measure much more likely to put off Disestablishment than to promote it, since it would lessen all the bitterness of feeling by which Disestablishment was most likely to be accelerated. Sir B. Cross, in reply, was extremely sober and conciliatory.
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