CONSECRATED GROUND.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTAT011.1
SIR,—Your correspondent agrees with me, I am glad to find, on many points,-:-possibly we are pot so widely at variance as lie imagines on the rest. His objection seems to be against the creation, or maintenance, of exclusive burial-places for the members of any particular communion. Let me point out that the rite of consecration has very little to do with the system to which he objects ; on the one hand, an unconsecrated burying- ground may be strictly restrained by its trust-deed to the members of some religious body ; on the other, ground which has been consecrated may be absolutely free. I have consecrated many graveyards since the passing of the Burials Act know- ing that the use of them will not be limited to Church- men. I have also consecrated ground which has been strictly limited to Churchmen, by the conveyance under which the land passed to its special trustees. Consecration does not decide the matter either way. If Mr. Baldwin Brown should rejoin, "Why, then, do you consecrate at all ?" I will answer in his own words,— " We bury our dead with prayer ; we commit them to the care of God ; we have sacred associations with their resting-place, and we make the sepulchre sure." If he will examine the language of our prayers at consecration, and of the sentence which constitutes its formal part, he will see the exact reflec- tion of his own words,—and no more. He has admitted that consecration could not intend the exclusion of Nonconformists, when such persons did not exist; if the rite of consecration continues to be what it then was, the rite cannot intend it now.
I have tried to rescue the rite of consecration from a not uncommon misrepresentation of its nature. But I do not deny that exclusive burying-grounds are preferred by some Church- men, and by many who are outside the Church. Such grounds are owned by Jews, by members of the Society of Friends, and by many bodies of Protestant Dissenters. These owners have not, as far as I know, thrown open their exclusive burying-places, since the passing of the Burials Act, to the Ministers and services of other religions bodies. Perhaps they are hindered by the law,—which, after all, " fetters " the owners of property
held in trust, whether they be Conformists or Nonconformists, alike. But I must not be led into a discussion on law. I judge, from the writings of Mr. Baldwin Brown, which I have- read, that he is conversant with the masters of English litera- ture; and I will venture to refer him to Hooker, for an answer to. that part of his letter.
I must add, Sir, that I am conscious of my boldness in asking for the insertion of a letter with the signature which, as from your article last week, you hold in very light esteem. But it is too late now to choose a pseudonym which might make me a persona grata in your editorial eyes, and I
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