Winfrid Oldfield Burrows

“ But theologians in the West had elaborated a theory of the grace of confirmation, which made its severance from baptism seem natural; and at the time of the Reformation, while neither side favoured the Eastern practice, the reformers, with their strong sense of the crucial importance of faith, emphasized the action of the individual in the service, and therefore laid it down as a rule that confirmation should be deferred till the child could learn a catechism on the fundamentals of the Christian faith, which Calvin thought he might do by the time he was ten. ”

“ The West, on the other hand, deferred confirmation, not at first till the child had reached years of discretion, though that afterwards became the theory, but from the necessities of the case. The child was baptized at once, that it might be admitted to the Church, while the completion of its baptism was put off till it could be brought to a bishop. Western canons insist on both points at once; baptism is not to be deferred beyond a week, nor confirmation beyond seven years. ”

“ Practically, the preparation of candidates for confirmation is the most important and exacting duty of the Anglican parish priest, as the administration of the rite is the most arduous of a bishop's tasks ”