_Burial Service Tradition_ (Vol. ix., p. 451.).--The only cases in which a
clergyman is legally justified in refusing to read the entire service over
the body of a parishioner or other person admitted to burial in the
parochial cemetery, are the three which are mentioned in the preliminary
rubric, which, as expounded by the highest authorities, are as follows: 1.
In case the person died without admission to the universal church by
Christian baptism. 2. Or "denounced 'excommunicate majori excommunicatione'
for some grievous and notorious crime, and no man able to testify of his
repentance." (Canon 68.) 3. Or _felo de se_; for in a case of suicide the
acquittal of the deceased by a coroner's jury entitles him to Christian
burial. The extraordinary notion of the clergyman, mentioned by the REV. S.
ADAMS, is certainly erroneous in law. I can only suppose it originated from
some case in which the severance of the deceased's right hand was regarded
by the jury as a proof that he did not kill himself. Except in certain
special cases, none but parishioners are entitled to burial in a parochial
burying-place at all.