learned; who may be unable to peruse a treatise, though they may understand a subject exhibited in a picture. They contribute to preserve the mind from distractions and roving imaginations during the time of prayer; they become the occasion of pious and fervent desires; and they unquestionably tend to promote a holy and laudable emulation to follow those examples, which are so affectingly exhibited.

Neither can the scrupulous Christian apprehend any divine prohibition of a practice, so explained and modified, and so embodied in the common transactions of mankind. On the contrary, a relative veneration to places which God has honoured, to things which bear a relation to him, and to sacred subjects, are held up to our regard in the sacred oracles, provided always that supreme adoration, cultus latriæ, be given to God alone. Moses is told in distinct terms1, the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. The royal prophet, alluding to the veneration shown to the ark, exclaims: adore his footstool; for he is holy. Over the ark of the covenant the cherubim are directed to be placed3; a brazen serpent is made by the divine command, to which the people were to direct their view, for the benefit of a cure. Could all this be enjoined to a people notoriously prone to idolatry, and shall

1 Exod. iii. 5.

3 Exod. xxv. 18 et seq.

2 Psalm xcviii. 5, al. xcix.

Num. xxi. 8, 9.

no relative veneration either of places or any memorials be allowed in the Catholic Church, at a period when idolatry is unknown in the Christian world?

Indeed the good and conscientious Protestant, who carries about with him a sanctified horror of what he is pleased to term the worship of images, not only reveres and venerates the picture of his friend, which he kisses with affection; but on more solemn occasions he shows an ardent love and remembrance for the book of the Gospels; he bows to the name of Jesus; he even makes a reverence to the throne of his sovereign; and if called upon to give an explication of the act, he sensibly observes, that he honours the place, which is the seat of majesty. All this is extremely commendable; but on the same principle, he will allow the Catholic a similar privilege of honouring the memorials of Christ and his saints.

If the catechist wishes to know, what the general practice of the church has been on this subject, let him go back to the eighth century, when the second general Council of Nice was held, and then he will find the practice established in terms as clear as those employed by the Council of Trent'. If, according to his usual

1 See Summ. Concil. Gen. Nic. II. act. 7. Carranz. fol. 289.

mode, he is disposed to treat the practice of more than a thousand years standing as a novelty, though the boasted reform counts only three hundred, let him consult those who lived in the flourishing period of Christianity; the Basils, the Chrysostoms, the Augustines. The authority of the first of these eminent prelates was produced in the Council of Nice, from an oration against Julian1. St. Chrysostom, in his liturgy, says of the priest, that he bows his head to the image of Jesus Christ, and to that of his virgin mother and the great St. Augustine proclaims aloud the same doctrine, relative to the honour due to images, in terms not to be misconstrued3. But let us proceed to reply to the specific difficulties of our reformed theologian.

2

I. The catechist says, that God forbade any likeness to be made of himself; therefore none can be worshipped. It is true that the Jews were laid under peculiar restrictions, even to the making of any similitude or likeness of any thing in the heavens, the earth, and the waters, as appears from the passage referred to by the catechist; but this prohibition arose from their proneness to idolatry, and, as the Scripture expresses it, from an apprehension lest they should corrupt themselves. This order, however, was 1 Act. II. ibid.

2 St. Chrys. Litur. apud Savil. tom. vi. ad calcem operis. 3 St. Aug. de Trin. lib. 3. c. 10.

Deut. iv. 15, et seq.

not designed to operate in all cases, or under all circumstances; otherwise how could the catechist tolerate at this day, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth1. If this order were generally and permanently to be carried into effect, how could the Almighty himself have directed the brazen serpent and the figure of the cherubim to be formed? Even the honest catechist has no objection to see the Holy Ghost represented in the form of a dove; the whole concern that he has or ought to have is, that the creature be not adored for the Creator.

II. The worship forbidden by the second commandment, or according to our division of the commandments, by the first, is of this latter description; that divine adoration be not given to idols; but the relative veneration paid to images, so satisfactorily explained, is by no means opposed to the paramount duty which we owe to God.

III. When the catechist asserts, that the Israelites adored the true God under the figure of a calf, he appears to me to possess some properties of that animal, which was the object of the Jewish adoration; for the intent of those idola1 Dent. iv. 17, 18.

ters cannot be mistaken, as appears incontestibly from the clear recital of the sacred historian, who records the transaction1; and the Lord saidunto Moses, go, get thee down; for thy people which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, these be thy Gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Such was the crime of Israel, complete and manifest idolatry; but what connexion has this hideous transgression with the relative veneration paid to a picture, founded on the same principle, on which the catechist cherishes the memorial of a departed parent?

IV. Here, in the corresponding number, we possess an additional instance of the unparalleled skill of the catechist in the practices of Christian antiquity. Let it be published in Gaza, let it be heard in Askalon. He says, that the Primitive Christians never suffered images to be painted on the walls of their churches, as they accounted the worship unlawful. The truth is, they had no churches for the first three hundred years, on the walls of which they could exhibit the decorations of painting and statuary. It is well known that the Christian religion, during that length

' Exod. xxxii. 7, 8.