g towards the grave
is intended to meet exceptional cases of apprehended infection,
when it might be dangerous to bring the body into the church. No
distinction of spiritual condition was contemplated. It is clearly
the general intention of the revisers of 1662 that the corpse should
in ordinary cases be brought first into the church. But when under
special circumstances it has been taken from the entrance of the
churchyard directly to the grave, there seems no reason why the
people should not return to the church after the interment, for
the reading the Psalms and Lesson, as was expressly provided in
the Prayer-Book of 1549.

When the corpse is taken first to a church, and afterwards to a
distant cemetery, the part of the service which follows the Lesson
being necessarily reserved for use at the grave, the previous
part, i.e. the Sentences, Psalms, and Lesson, which were said
at the church, should not be repeated at the grave.

269. After they are come into the Church, shall be read one or
both of these Psalms following. I said, &c, _and_ Lord, Thou hast
been, &c.

When the corpse is brought into the church, it is usually placed
in the Nave. In the burial of a Priest it would seem decorous to
place the corpse in the Chancel. In either case the feet should
be towards the east.

The place of the officiating Priest, in reading the Psalms and
Lesson, is not specified. Sometimes it is the custom to stand at
the feet of the corpse (when it is placed near the Chancel), so
that the congregation may be in front of the Priest, but usually
he would occupy 'the accustomed place.' The 90th Psalm seems the
most appropriate for burial of an aged person.

270. Then shall follow the Lesson taken out of the fifteenth
Chapter of the former Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians.

271. When they come to the Grave, while the Corpse is made ready
to be laid into the earth, the Priest shall say, or the Priest
and Clerks shall sing: Man that is born, &c.

In the Prayer-Book of 1549 the casting the earth upon the body was
directed to be done by the Priest, with the words, 'I commend thy
soul to God the Father Almighty.' This action was transferred
from the Priest to 'some standing by,' when those words were
omitted in 1552. The present rubric seems to direct that any one
else is to perform the act. If done, as it usually is, by the
Parish Clerk, or other inferior Church official, there is more
dignity in it than if done by an unof