(Vol. v., pp. 466. 549.)
There can be no doubt, I think, that a burial ground, whether parish
churchyard or cemetery, so long as it has been consecrated, or even
licensed by the bishop, is only _legally_ useable for interments performed
according to "the ecclesiastical laws of this realm;" _i.e._ the burial
service, as rubrically directed, must be read by a clergyman over the
corpse. Whether the bishop would have proceeded by law against the
clergyman in Carlile's case, supposing he had desisted from the service
under the protests of the sons, may be questioned; but that he could have
done so is beyond a doubt. The sixty-eighth canon says, that "no minister
shall refuse or delay to bury any corpse that is brought to the church or
churchyard ... in such manner and form as is prescribed in the Book of
Common Prayer. And if he shall refuse, &c., he shall be suspended by the
bishop of the diocese from his ministry by the space of three months." The
consecration, or episcopal licence, seems to tie the burial ground to the
burial service, except in the three cases of persons who die
excommunicated, unbaptised, or by their own hands; and I imagine that a
clergyman would render himself liable to suspension by his bishop, who
either allowed interments to take place in the churchyard without the
burial service, or, on the other hand, used the service in unconsecrated or
unlicensed ground. By the 3 Ja. I. c. 5., there is a penalty for burying a
corpse away from the church; but this law is either repealed or obsolete.
If any services of the church be used by a clergyman, except "according to
order," I imagine that he renders himself liable to penal consequences; but
it may be sometimes thought best to omit them. Sometimes, however, as in
the case of baptisms being allowed in drawing-rooms, there is such an
intentional oversight as is quite indefensible.
The story which I have heard of Baskerville's burial is as follows;--He
died at Birmingham, but was not interred, and his corpse was kept in the
house in which he had lived. After a time this house was sold, and the
purchaser of it became embarrassed by the unexpected discovery that he was
in possession of the old printer's mortal remains. He applied to the
clergyman of {614} the parish for release from his difficulty; and this
gentleman, being a man of the world, said that he was the last person who
ought to have been consulted, but since it was so, the churchyard and the
shades of evening afforded a remedy.
Perhaps it is worth adding, that when Sir W. Page Wood, the late
Solicitor-General, would have brought a bill into parliament to relieve
dissenters from the payment of church rates, on condition that they
consented to forego all claim upon the services of the church, including of
course the burial service, the bargain was declined by them.