plored, were seated on the right hand of God; but the gracious and often supernatural favours, which in the popular belief were showered round their tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction to the devout pilgrims who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of their merits and sufferings. But a memorial more interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is a faithful

copy of his person and features delineated by the arts

-

of painting or sculpture. At first the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honours of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason or piety were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of adoration. The use, and even the worship of images, was firmly established before the end of the sixth century. -They were propagated in the camps and cities of the eastern empire; they were the objects of worship and the instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult, their venerable presence could revive the hopes, rekindle the courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions.-The cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been FORTIFIED with the images of Christ, his mother and his saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defence."*-Images were not only esteemed as for* Gibbon's Hist. chap. xlix. vol. ix. pp. 113, 114, 115, 116, 120,

121.

VOL. I.

tresses, or the saints as protectors, but, according to popish legends, the actual deliverance of cities was ascribed to them. "In the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius," it is recorded concerning the image of Edessa, "that the palladium was exposed on the rampart; and that the water which had been sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching added new fuel to the flames of the besieged. Its first and most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the arms of Chosroes Nushirvan."*

The full and literal import of Mahuzzim is preserved in the common designation of " TUTELARY saints," whose ordinary appellatives are protectors, guardians or defenders. They are invoked as such, whether in the lightness of unguarded conversation or in all the solemnity of a fervent prayer, whether in the gayest or the gloomiest mood, and alike by the rustic catholic at a fair, or a royal devotee at the altar. And while the origin of the custom can be traced far back in the history of Christendom, as ranking with the earliest of the corruptions which tarnished a pure and holy faith, the invocation of saints, as protectors, defenders, and intercessors, is still the prevalent practice in every catholic church, and daily in every catholic family, where the injunctions contained in their authorised prayer-book are not broken.

"In the Litany of the saints," which is the first of "the prayers recommended to be said in catholic fa

* Gibbon's Hist. chap. xlix. vol. ix. pp. 118, 119.

+ Roman Catholic Prayer-book, entitled the Key of Heaven, or a Manual of Prayer, 23d edition, printed by Richard Coyne, printer, bookseller, and publisher to the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth; to which is prefixed the following approval—“I hereby approve this Prayer-Book, entitled Key of Heaven, or Manual of Prayers,' printed and published by Richard Coyne, of Chapel Street, Dublin; and I recommend it to the use of the Faithful."-pp. 47, 48.

Dublin, July 21, 1824.

“D. Murray, R.C. Ap.”

66

milies every evening," fifty-four saints are invoked by their names, at the head of which, and before the archangels, stands "Holy Mary, pray for us," &c. "A prayer to our guardian angel" includes these petitions, "I conjure thee, O amiable guide, to defend me against my enemies-to protect me, in particular, at the hour of death :-enlighten, defend, and protect me," &c.* Under the titles "A prayer to the Blessed Virgin-The Litany of our Blessed Lady of Loretto-The thirty-days prayer to the B. V. Mary-The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin," &c. the following supplications and expressions occur- "O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God,-I come to offer thee my most humble homage, and to implore the aid of thy prayers and protection. Thy intercession is most powerful, and thy goodness for mankind on earth is equal to thy influence in heaven.+-Most powerful Virgin-tower (mahoz) of David; tower of ivoryrefuge of sinners-help of Christians-queen of angels, &c.-queen of all saints, pray for us, we fly to thy patronage, deliver us from all dangers.+-Assist and comfort me in all my infirmities and miseries of what kind soever. Thou art the mother of mercies and only refuge of the needy and orphan, of the desolate and the afflicted. Hear my prayer-for whither can I fly for more secure shelter, than under the wings of thy maternal PROTECTION? And as I am persuaded my divine Saviour doth honour thee as his beloved mother, to whom he can refuse nothing, so let me speedily experience the efficacy of thy powerful intercession, § &c. O most blessed Virgin, vouchsafe to negociate for and with us the work of our salvation, by thy powerful intercession."||

But the Mahuzzims, or gods-protectors, guardian

* Roman Catholic Prayer-book, &c. p. 10. Ibid. pp. 31, 32. § Ibid. pp. 86, 87, 90.

+ Ibid. p. 22.

|| Ibid. p. 333.

66

ΤΟ

and tutelary saints, form a "multitude of acceptable intercessors; therefore," says the suppliant, according to the prescribed form of one of the prayers at night, "I beseech the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed John Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me."* Repeated prayers "To your guardian angel," "To the Virgin," "a prayer To St. Joseph," as well as their ceaseless invocations, are confutations, drawn from their prayer book, of the assertion that Catholics do not pray to the saints. In a prayer to St. Joseph, he is thus implored,-"Be touched with the confidence we have in thee; and graciously accept these testimonies of our devotion." The saints are all, without any qualification or exception, appealed to as guardians, and by their merits and prayers Catholics profess to be defended. Under the title of the Canon of Mass, as if an avowed confirmation of the prophecy were given in the most solemn of the rites, we read," Communicating with, and HONOURING in the first place, the memory of the everglorious Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ; as also of the blessed apostles and martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, and Thadeus, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Xystus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and of all thy saints; by whose merits and prayers, grant that we may be always DEFENDED by the help of thy PROTECTION."

Catholic manuals of devotion, Catholic testimony in ancient times, and the public and private prayers of Catholics in accordance with a prescribed form, in the present day, can best tell, to whom they look as towers or bulwarks, in whom they confide, under whose

* Roman Catholic Prayer-book, p. 25. † Ibid. Pp. 18, 19, 22, 33. Ibid. p. 35.

shelter they seek protection, whom they invoke and name as tutelary or protecting saints, on whom, and not on Christ alone, they call and rely as intercessors, whose honour is associated with that of Jehovah, or whom they worship in their holds, their monasteries, their temples, and their closets, together with, or instead of, the only living and true God, and whose images are there, to which, often virtually if not always literally blotting the second commandment from their canon, they do actually "bow down.”

While all the saints were invoked as intercessors and protectors, it is obvious that divine honours were paid supereminently to one of them. Adopting the language of history, we learn that "the worship of the Virgin Mary, which before the tenth century had been carried to a very high degree of idolatry, then received new accessions of solemnity and superstition. Towards the conclusion of that century, a custom was introduced among the Latins of celebrating masses, and abstaining from flesh, in honour of the blessed Virgin, every Sabbath day. After this was instituted what the Latins call the lesser office, in honour of St. Mary, which was, in the following century, confirmed by Urban II. in the council of Clermont. There are also to be found in this age manifest indications of the institution of the Rosary and Crown of the Virgin, by which her worshippers were to reckon the number of prayers that they were to offer to this NEW DIVINITY. The rosary consists in fifteen repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and a hundred and fifty salutations of the blessed Virgin; while the crown, according to the different opinions of the learned concerning the age of the blessed Virgin, consists in six or seven repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and six or seven times ten salutations, or Ave Marias."*

Mosheim, Cent. x. c. iv. sect. 3.