THE CLERGY AND THE BURIAL SERVICE. [TO THE Emma or
THE &memos."] SIR,—" A Hospital Chaplain" cries out before he is hart, for he will not find in my letter any expression of unwillingness to relieve the Clergy from the indiscriminate use of the burial service. It is the laity of his own Church, and not Noncon- formists, who " grudge " the clergy liberty in this matter, the Church Times of last week going so far as to say that "the clergy have too many fools amongst them, to be safely trusted with the power of choosing universally between two offices of differing tone." I do not know whether Churchmen, "as a body," regard the existing service only as "an innocent expression of charity for the departed," and therefore do not object to its use in all cases. I, however, do know that in 1851 as many as 3,814 clergymen, in a memorial to the Episcopal Bench, declared that "the almost indiscriminate use' The Order for the Burial of the Dead' imposed "a burden on the conscience of the Clergy," and that
in 1863, 3,014 clergymen petitioned the House of Lords to the same effect. Probably, "A Hospital Chaplain" forgot these facts, when he wrote his last letter.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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