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But

These remarks proceed on the supposition that all the Romish saints are in heaven. it might be easily shown that many of them, like the heathen demigods, were the most worthless or the most vicious of mankind; canonised for superstition so drivelling, so fantastic, and so disgusting, as to fit them only for bedlam; or for zeal so intolerant, so cruel, and so impious, as to bring them to the scaffold, had not commonsense and justice been banished from the high places of authority.

But granting, for argument sake, that all the saints in the calendar are in heaven, and that those who have entered into their rest are permitted to pray for the church on earth, still the practice of praying to them would be absurd and useless for this simple reason, that they cannot hear us. Had each saint a particular city or district to patronise and protect, there would be some reason in the homage of its inhabitants as a body; but even in such a case, individual supplications would be foolish, unless the votary received some indications of the presence of the tutelary power.

This, however, is not the doctrine of your Church, which teaches the duty of praying to, and venerating all the saints, as binding on all her children in every part of the world at the

M

same time. This is in effect, to attribute omnipresence and omniscience to these personages; and as these are essential attributes of deity, it follows that the saints must be gods; and thus the Church of Rome is convicted of teaching Polytheism, or a plurality of Gods, which is nothing less than the old system of Heathenism baptized, and decked out in the drapery of Christianity. This change, so slight as scarcely to deserve the name of metamorphosis, is fitly symbolised by what occurred to the statue of Jupiter in Rome. The thunderbolt was removed from his hands, and the keys placed in their stead, and then his godship was dubbed St. Peter.

He

Have angels and saints an intuitive perception of every change of heart that takes place on earth? If so, they are gods. They "search the hearts and try the reins of the children of men." Grant this, and one of the most conclusive arguments by which JEHOVAH establishes his own exclusive deity loses all its force. can no longer say, "I am HE that searcheth the heart." This prerogative is not shared by all the host of heaven! awful consequences resulting, of necessity, from the logic of Roman Catholic divines. If you ask, how then do they become acquainted with individual cases of conversion? I answer, that

divine: it is

Such are the

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the intelligence is borne to the courts above by those heavenly messengers that God sends forth, from to time, to minister to the heirs of salvation (Heb. i. 14); or it is communicated to the adoring throng by God himself. This mode of accounting for the knowledge attributed to angels is perfectly satisfactory. To ascribe it to a faculty which is tantamount to omniscience is, therefore, a gratuitous assumption, leading to consequences not only blasphemous, but atheistical.

It is asserted that the angels are always amongst us, and therefore cannot be ignorant of our requests. But there is no proof that the angels are always amongst us. Nor is there any reason to believe that the saints are ever amongst us. If one of the former happened to be present, he might indeed hear our prayers; but as that is a bare possibility, the practice of supplicating angels, even were it lawful, would be merely "beating the air;" while, in reference to the latter, it is manifest, that as the saints are in heaven, and we on the earth, they cannot be "amongst us," and therefore cannot hear us.

As to the "prayers of the saints" mentioned in the book of Revelation, v. 8 and viii. 4, a few remarks will, I hope, satisfy your mind on that point. You have read Bishop Walmsly's cele

brated book Pastorini, and you have also read Dr. Doyle's remarks on it addressed to the Roman Catholics of this country, when they were agitated about the fulfilment of its prophecies in the destruction of the Protestant "locusts." From both writers you have learned that the whole book of the Apocalypse, excepting the first three chapters, is a continued series of symbols, in which are darkly shadowed forth the varying vicissitudes of the church militant on earth. You are not, therefore, to regard these symbols as realities in heaven, but as emblematical of certain occurrences taking place in this transitory world. The vials and the odours, in beautiful allusion to the incense in the Temple, represent the prayers of the people of God here below, offered up directly to him while passing through the trials of the present life.

It is true that saints on earth have known many things done in secret by a special revelation from God. It is also true that the capacities of believers will be greatly enlarged after death, and that the circle of their knowledge will be expanding through eternity. And it is true that Satan, from his vast intellectual powers, and incessant vigilance, has a deep knowledge of human nature, and of the motives and conduct of the "Litany of the Blessed Virgin of Loretto," in

individuals. But does it therefore follow, that angels and departed spirits are acquainted with the human heart? When Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee," he expressed his belief in his Godhead; for of none but God can universal knowledge be predicated. Therefore, I again assert, that the invocation of saints and angels leads directly to Polytheism.

Another argument is drawn from the assumption, that the hearing of saints and angels "is independent on sound, and, consequently, independent on distance."

It was a question debated among the schoolmen, how many angels could stand on the point of a needle; and many other matters relative to the modes of angelic existence, too ludicrous to be mentioned here, occupied the attention of those learned triflers. But they doated about questions that admitted of no solution, and perplexed themselves with strifes that were interminable, “intruding into those things which they had not seen, vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds." Of the modes of spiritual existence we, in fact, know nothing; and, in regard to things not revealed, we should not dogmatise. But

"Fools will rush, where angels fear to tread."