PENALTY FOR MARRYING A CLERGYMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

PENALTY FOR MARRYING A CLERGYMAN.

REMARKABLE CLAUSE IN A WILL.' "I desire and explicitly order and direct that at jmy death, whether in England or elsewhere, my body shall be cremated, and that the ash residue—the product of ; such cremation ground to powder and again (if necessary with the addition of ;> any chemical) be. burnt and dissipated in the air." a;: " . T This singular- provision appears in' the will of the late Mr." Thomas Bevan, of Stone Park, Greenhithe, Kent, who died on March 1, aged seventy-three. Mr. Bevan, who ■ was, a director of the Commercial Gas -Company, Limited, formerly Sheriff of London and Middlesex, and elected Liberal M.P. for Gravesend in 1880, but unseated on petition, left estate of which the net personality has been sworn at £376,862 13s 2d. The testator, also makes a most remarkable statement ;of his attitude towards religious belief, and withdraws from his daughters and granddaughters any power of appointment of their settled' legacies in favour of a husband, should he be a clergyman. • * '" : . • , "Convinced as I am," runs the will, "that it is. impossible in these present times for a man possessed of the combination of the ' quality of straightforwardness with the ordinary intellectual qualification to make the solemn declaration required at an ordination, which ' requires him to affirm for example, his • belief in the historical accuracy of the Book of Genesis. ..and that the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John 7 were more than feeble and fallible, who often did great injustice to the Greatest of ? Men. '■' . . I : ' should regard with the gravest misgiving were my daughters or either of. my granddaughters to marry a clergyman, believing as I do that in the near future there must be much distress, uneasiness, and trouble in store for rightminded inch of that calling." Mr. Bevan made generous bequests to his servants', including £5000 to "my most capable and esteemed valet, i Percy Hogben."