RESOLUTION XX.
Reading edition
Burial of the Dead.
By far the most important section of this Resolution is the one providing for the insertion of special features when the office is used at the burial of children. The provision, or at least the suggestion, of a more appropriate Lesson would be wise, but for the rest, the office is almost all that could be wished.
A recent critic[88] raises the question, "Why single out infants alone for a special service? Why not forms for rich men and poor men—old men and maidens—widows and orphans?" And yet our Lord Jesus Christ did single out little children in a very striking and wonderful manner, and drew a distinction between them and us which may well justify our treating their obsequies with a peculiar tenderness. Even Rome, Mater dura infantum as she has been sometimes thought, is studious to consult in this point the natural affections of the bereaved, and appoints a funeral mass distinct from that appointed for the dead in general.
Bishop Seabury felt the need of a rite of this sort and prepared one, but whether it was ever in actual use among the clergy of Connecticut the writer is not informed. Many, very many, since Seabury's day, have felt the same need, and it is safe to say that no one feature of The Book Annexed has enjoyed so universal a welcome as this rightful concession to the demands of the parental heart.