CHRISOME

in the office of baptism, was a white vesture, which in former times the priest used to put upon the child, saying, “Take this white vesture for a token of innocence.” By a constitution of Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 736, the chrisomes, after having served the purposes of baptism, were to be made use of only for the making or mending of surplices, ., or for the wrapping of chalices. The first Common Prayer Book of King Edward orders that the woman shall offer the chrisome, when she comes to be churched; but, if the child happens to die before her churching, she was excused from offering it; and it was customary to use it as a shroud, and to wrap the child in it when it was buried. Hence, by an abuse of words, the term is now used not to denote children who die between the time of their baptism and the churching of the mother, but to denote children who die before they are baptized, and so are incapable of Christian burial.