of a beautiful nun, whom he pursued with importunities which threw her into despair. Where, or from whom should she seek protection?—from Heaven itself, no doubt! but this was not enough. She supplicated the Virgin Mary to succour a virgin in distress, while, by the most severe penances, she sought at once to deform her beauty and to propitiate the divine mercy. atque his plura commemorans, Virginemque Mariam supplex obsecrans, ut periclitanti virgini suppetias ferret, jejunii et chameuniæ pharmaco sese communit, partim ut formæ venustatem tanquam insidiosam obscuraret, etc.-partim ut per sui afflictionem propitium sibi Deum et exorabilem redderet.—Tom. i. p. 279.

This profane stuff (howbeit drawn from the pages of a "wise man, wiser than you or I or any of us") one would scorn to cite, did it not come in evidence in a controversy which forbids our being very nice. The foolish legend had either descended from an earlier age, or it was the invention of Gregory's time (probably his own coinage for the occasion). If ancient-then it carries up the proof of this species of impiety to a remote antiquity, and so involves other elements of early christianity in the gravest suspicion; but whether it be ancient, or more recent, the telling such a story, by such a man, on such an occasion, shows what the people were then used to. If no such practice as that of praying to the Virgin Mary had ever been heard of, could a bishop have dared to advance so astounding a novelty? It is manifest that the ears of the people had already been made familiar with tales of this quality, and that they themselves were in the habit of doing what their teachers thus allowed and recommended. In a word, the worship of the Virgin and the saints was, in the fourth century, mainly what it has been through so long a course of time-the favourite delusion of besotted and misguided nations.

What follows agrees well with this beginning. The "old wife's fable" about Cyprian's remains I have already referred to, but must here cite what was in that place omitted, namely, Gregory's affirmation concerning the miraculous virtues of these relics. Our question is, Who originated those notions and practices which, when they meet us in Italy, or Ireland, we are compelled to condemn as idolatrous? The sending the common people to shrines,

there to obtain miraculous cures, has never had any other effect than that of debauching every genuine religious sentiment; and of reducing, at the same time, the sacerdotal guardians of such shrines to the lowest condition of mercenary hypocrisy. Has it not ever been so? But who were the guilty authors of these debasing superstitions?

Cyprian's body could not be found-num scilicet hoc damno angeremur, acerbeque ferremus nos sacrosanctis reliquiis privari : but at length, lest the church should too long suffer so grievous a privation, the body was discovered di anокaλews, and the benefits thence accruing were laid open to all christians. In fact, a magnificent shrine long attracted pilgrims to Carthage, from all quarters of christendom. What these benefits were, the preacher professes his inability duly to set forth; but happily his hearers could supply the deficiency. "What remained it was for them to add, as an offering on their part made to the martyr." Dæmonum nimirum oppressionem, morborum depulsionem, futurarum rerum. prænotionem (let the reader mark the words, TÙY TOU μÉλλOVTOS póyνwoir) quæ quidem omnia vel cineres ipsi Cypriani, modo fides adsit, efficiunt: quemadmodum norunt, qui hujus rei periculum fecerunt, ac miraculum ad nos usque transmiserunt, ejusdemque memoriam posteris quoque tradituri sunt.

The most pernicious branch of these ancient frauds would naturally be that of the fortune-telling function of the Relics. The dangerous impatience of the human mind to penetrate futurity becomes a sort of mania, when stimulated by alliance with other powerful emotions. But what are the ministers of such a shrine likely to become, who find themselves daily importuned by crowds, to lift for them the veil of the future? Will such men long be scrupulous, or will they be able to keep clean hands? Or will not the office quickly come under the management of thorough-going knaves? After thus inciting the people to give themselves to these delusions, the preacher's following admonitions to imitate the martyr's virtues could be of little avail, or absolutely of none. It is a matter of course that he should conclude with a passionate address to the Divus, beseeching his favour and help.-At tu nos e cœlo benignus aspicias!

"Read the oration of Gregory Nyssen on Ephraim Syrus."

The bombast of this father when he has a "Saint" to glorify overleaps all bounds. The "holy Ephraim" is to be lifted aloft, that the whole world may gaze upon the resplendent fullorbed glories of his virtue. Ο μέγας Πατὴρ ἡμῶν, had he found a more discreet eulogist, might have appeared to far more advantage in the eyes of posterity. The reader resents an adulation offered to the Dead which, according to the notions of those from whose lips it came, resembled much the sycophancy of a hungry expectant. The professed purport of the orator's task is, ut populo clare constet, nostrum hunc, aut verius universæ Ecclesiæ Doctorem, S. Ephraim, ad supremum gradum in spiritali virtutum scala pervenisse.

Had it been indeed a god he was celebrating, the orator could hardly have found loftier language than that in which he invokes, and labours to propitiate his Saint. The reader will observe, not merely Gregory Nyssen's extravagance, but the reference to a fact which illustrates the then common practice of imploring help from a Saint, precisely in the manner usual with the people now in roman catholic countries. Any translation I might attempt of this passage would be suspected of exaggeration.

Hæc sunt, quæ tibi, Patrum optime, mundique Doctor clarissime, laudum præconia audax lingua, ut vilia munuscula, offert : non ea quidem pro dignitate, neque ut indigenti tibi: (quam enim afferre queat gloriam oratio, quæ laudati meritis plane superatur?) verum propter viventium potius utilitatem; nam bonorum atque præstantiorum virorum encomia, maximam plerisque consolationem et cohortationem ad meliora adferunt. Hanc vero laudandi provinciam alacrius suscepimus, cum variis aliis adducti rationibus, præter vitæ doctrinæque tuæ famam, toto terrarum orbe celeberrimam, tum cura illa, & Oavμaorý oov étioraoia, quam in homine ejusdem nominis liberando adhibuisti. Ille siquidem nos ad subeundum hoc onus impulit, qui a posteris Ismael in bello captus, et longius a patria diu commoratus, cum jam ad eam redire desideraret, viamque commodam ignoraret, singulari ope tua, τῆς σῆς ἔτυχε παραδόξου ἐπιστασίας, aptam ad salutem rationem invenit, et quod diu concupiverat, adeptus est. Cum enim in maximum vitæ discrimen adductus esset (quod omnes viæ barbarorum interclusæ copiis tenerentur) te nomine duntaxat invocavit,

dicens, Sancte Ephraim, succurre mihi, ἅγιε Ἐφραὶμ, βοήθει μοι. (Hibernice" Holy Saint Patrick, help me!") Sicque tuto periculorum laqueos evasit, ac mortis metum neglexit; inopinatamque consecutus salutem, patriæ, tuo munitus præsidio, vπò τñs ☛ñs πpovoías provρouμevos, præter spem est restitutus. Quare ad ista enarranda audacius aggressi, laudes tuas impuris attingere labiis, non sumus veriti. Qua quidem in re, si quid profecerimus, id tuo nos adsecutos auxilio fatebimur, tibique acceptum feremus: sin vero tua dignitate multo inferiores sint nostræ laudationes, te quoque (licet forte audacius hoc dictum videatur) in caussa fuisse dicemus, qui et vivens et defunctus modestiæ humilitatisque studio, te collaudare cupientes impedis. Veruntamen, sive istud sit, sive illud, nos quantum tulerunt vires, pietatis officio satisfecimus; teque hoc ipsum minime nobis succensurum, neque tui amantissimos aversurum; verum æquo benevoloque animo filiorum balbutientium laudes admissurum, confidimus. Tu autem divino jam adsistens altari, vitæque principi ac sanctissimæ una cum angelis sacrificans Trinitati, omnium nostrum memineris, veniamque nobis peccatorum impetra, ut sempiterna cœlestis regni beatitudine perfrui possimus. In Christo Jesu Domino nostro; Cui gloria, &c.-Tom. ii. p. 1047.

We must here take breath awhile, and carefully gather up the import of this signal passage. In the name of all idolaters, ancient or modern, classic or barbarian, pagan or popish, let justice, and nothing more or less, take its course upon this christian father. As to papists, and whom when we catch them at their devotions, we protestants, even the most indulgent of us, are compelled to call idolaters, there is no shadow of difference, either in form or substance, between Gregory Nyssen, and the most thoroughgoing Saint-worshipper of the middle ages, or of our own times. These latter have been as good trinitarians as he, and have been as ready as he to insist upon those distinctions and reserves concerning latria, dulium, hyperdulium, by means of which the imputation of flagrant idolatry has been evaded. But, as every one knows, neither Gregory Nyssen's hearers, nor Dr. Wiseman's, have been used to give the least heed to any such refinements: on the contrary, trusting themselves to the guidance of their teachers, they have, with the confidence of

urgent want or woe, betaken themselves to " their gods." On every occasion when some common danger has threatened the lives of many such worshippers, every one has said to his fellow"Arise thou, and call upon thy god; for if one be not at hand, or in mood to help us, another may." One invokes Saint Joseph, another Saint Patrick, another the Blessed Virgin, another Saint Ephraim; and when deliverance has been happily obtained, one points to another, and says "This poor man cried, and his god heard him, and delivered him from his fears!"

It may be pretended that the passage we have cited is nothing. more than a rhetorical apostrophe, not very wise perhaps, but yet not heavily culpable. Such an extenuation is absolutely excluded, as well by the reasons above-mentioned, as by this, that this catholic doctor being one of the most noted and orthodox of those "wise men" whose peerless wisdom is to be our stay in all questions concerning truth and error, we are not at liberty to impute to such an authority a folly (if it be a folly) of the most extreme sort; and if this be a folly, then it attaches to every one of the "wise men" of that age of wisdom! In what a maze do we find ourselves entangled, if those from whose judgment there is no appeal, yet stand liable to an imputation of the most dangerous species of folly! If this worship of the dead, if this formal recommendation of the practice of seeking deliverance directly from a demon, be a folly, it is the folly of a "deceived heart," and of those who have been judicially "given over to believe a lie."

But, as we have said, we cannot admit this extenuation, in this instance, because the invocation of the saint, even if, by much indulgence, it might in itself be allowed to pass as a rhapsodical apostrophe, is fixed in its worst sense by the circumstances attending its delivery. I request the reader to weigh the terms, and to consider the real import of the passage as listened to by a credulous crowd. The orator, in bringing his panegyric to a close, looks to the heavens, and addressing the saint, implores his indulgent acceptance of the unworthy praises with which he, "a man of unclean lips," had dared to approach his seat of glory if he had been in any measure successful in weaving this chaplet of honour it was by aid received from the saint :-if however he had failed it had been because this saint had, in modesty, thrown impedi

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