IDOLATRY.

LETTER XIV.

I write this under a broad oak, on as beautiful a morning as ever dawned on the world. Upon the lawn, fragrant with fresh grass, and bespangled with dew-drops, the snowy sheep are browzing, and the tender lambs are sporting. And, I remember, besides, that this is your birth-day.

This is thy birth-day-know'st thou not, young friend,
That from thy years of life one more hath gone
For ever, and for ever?-hast thou ne'er

Paused in thine innocence before the leaves
That show their first, fair greenness to the spring?
Perchance while viewing them, some lovely one,
Nipped in its youth, hath fallen at thy feet,
And withered, never to be fair again.
That fallen leaf, methinks, resembles well,
year which hath just left thee. There are still
Many remaining-but there is one less.

The

Yet hath thy birth-day joys to greet thee still;
Health, vigour, beauty, still are left with thee.
Hope's wild, yet fragrant flower, is opening bright,
And heaven is smiling on thine innocence.
This is thy birth-day-yes, it is—it is:
Then joy be with thee and thy parents; joy
With all who soothe thee with the name of friend,
And as thy years flow from thee, turn thine eyes

To that bright heaven, where time shall be no more.

For my own part, I love to carry my thoughts into eternity, where the Spirits of the just are mingling in the communion of heaven, and looking down with vigilant

anxiety upon their friends who are still struggling in this valley of tears. I am not among those, who hold, that the saints in the bosom of their God, have forgotten their brethren on earth; that they feel no interest in, and have no knowledge of, the affairs of mortals.

No, "I believe in the communion of saints."—I believe that I may address my prayers to them, and I believe that they can hear, and, through the merits of Christ, can assist, me. Yes, all this I believe, notwithstanding the charge of idolatry which is alleged against me for so doing, by no obscure opponents.

I will examine whether the charge be groundedwhether for requesting a parent or a friend in heaven to pray for me, I am to be ranked among the pagans, and made like to those who invoked the gods and goddesses of old.

The reformation, was not undertaken on this ground: when Luther separated from the ancient church, it was not because he saw in the practice of praying to the saints anything that bordered on idolatry. He had other motives; he was impelled by other causes. For, in his sermon on the feast of St John the Baptist, addressing his audience on this very topic, he says: "You do not sin by asking them (the saints,) to pray for you."

The pretext of idolatry was assumed, as the learned Dr. Milner remarks, by the Duke of Somerset, with a view of inflaming the passions of the ignorant against the Catholic church, and in order to effect the revolution

which ensued. The tenet regarding the invocation of saints, was accordingly misrepresented—it was identified with the senseless rites of paganism; it was denounced as derogatory from the infinite merits of Christ, and contradictory to the plain meaning of the Scriptures.

This was a popular manœuvre :-the ignorant multitude began to imagine that the religion of Christ was at stake—and that it depended on their zeal and energy, to save the last remnant of truth; to kindle once more the dying embers of pure religion and to inflict a merited chastisement on those sacrilegious beings, who had spread darkness over the face of Christianity, and almost plunged the world back into the chaos of idolatry.

Nor was this spirit confined to the ignorant and the low it communicated itself to many of the ablest writers of those days; it breathed through their discourses, and insinuated its venom into all their productions.

The outcry, raised against this doctrine at that era of confusion and change, has rebounded from clime to clime, and from century to century. The echo of the present age, and in our free republic, still repeats, though with a fainter sound-Idolatry.

Yes, too often does the grave "professor," instead of instructing his theological pupils in the science of truth, instead of proclaiming facts, and expounding ecclesiastical history, too often, I repeat, does he forget his dignity, and join in the vulgar cry-Idolatry.