ANSWER.
Here it is insinuated as if I had been at the funeral when the clerk
performed the funeral-service at the grave. I can aver that my constant
practice is otherwise. What might occasion it that one time—whether
that I had not been spoken to, or that I was hoarse, or that I passed through
the churchyard accidentally while the clerk was in the funeral-service, and
I did not think fit to interrupt him—I can't tell, except the circumstances
of the fact were explained. But it is a common thing all over the country—
what through want of ministers, what by their great distance and the
heat of the weather and the smelling of the corpse—both to bury at
other places than churchyards and to employ laics to read the funeral-service,—which,
till our circumstances and laws are altered, we know not
how to redress.
