[Footnote 4: The unhealthy practice of using churches for this purpose
was continued some way into the nineteenth century. The still more
objectionable plan of depositing coffins containing the dead in
vaults under churches still lingers on. In 1875 I attended the funeral
(so-called) of a public man, whose coffin was borne into the vaults of
a town church, and left there, with scores of others piled in heaps in
recesses which looked like wine-cellars. Not one of the many mourners
who shared in that experience failed to feel horrified at the thought
of such a fate. Some of the old coffins were tumbling to pieces, and
the odour of the place was beyond description. In the words of Edmund
Burke: "I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a country
churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets."]

[Footnote 5: Weever's "Funeral Monuments," A.D. 1631.]

And there was a danger to be encountered far later than that which
was due to the anti-Popery zealots of the Tudor dynasty. On the
introduction of the Commonwealth there arose such a crusade against
all forms and emblems of doctrinal import as to affect not only the
ornaments of the churches, but the gravestones in the churchyards,
many of which were removed and put to other uses or sold. The
Puritans, as is well known, went to the extremity of abolishing all
ceremony whatever at the Burial of the Dead.[6] The beautiful Service
in the Book of Common Prayer, now used more or less by all the
Reformed Christian denominations of England, was abolished by
Parliament in 1645--that and the Prayer Book together at one stroke.
In lieu of the Prayer Book a "Directory" was issued on the conduct of
public worship, in which it was said:

[Footnote 6: There does not appear to have been any form of prayer for