vourite seat on the Alban Mount, and another on the promontory of Anxur; Faunus often quitted Lycæus for Lucretilis. Indeed Juvenal speaks of the hilly country as the ordinary retreat of the gods*:". Quis tamen affirmet nil actum in montibus, aut in The gods have oft, in other times, we're told, With nymphs on mountains and in caves made bold; This mechanical mode of getting nearer to heaven is still as great a favourite as ever. On Monte Nero, near Leghorn, is a magnificent church raised by the piety of Italian sailors to the Madonna del Monte. At Bologna is another, to the Madonna di S. Luca, also on the summit of a steep hill; and at Vicenza may be seen a third, similarly situated. Indeed, throughout the whole country, there is hardly a rock or precipice, however difficult access, that has not an oratory, or altar, or crucifix on the top of it. Here then we have, in the groves and hills of Catholic worship, a striking resemblance to that of which the people of Israel were commanded to extir of * Αυτος δ' εν κορυφῇσι καθέζετο κυδεϊ γαιων.-Π. Θ. 50. Tuque ex tuo edito Monte Latiali, sancte Jupiter.-Cic. pro Mil. The sage Tacitus was not exempt from this absurdity; speaking of certain high mountains where the gods were worshipped, he thus expresses himself: Maximè cælo appropinquare, precesque mortalium à Deo nusquam propius audiri. “As approaching nearer to heaven, the prayers of mortals are there more distinctly heard.” pate every vestige:-" Ye shall utterly destroy the places wherein the nations served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills, and under every green tree and ye shall overthrow their altars, break their pillars, burn their groves, and hew down the graven images of their gods.*" The various supernatural powers with which the saints of the Italians and gods of the Romans have been respectively endowed, furnish a fourth parallel. Whatever worship was paid by the ancients to their inferior deities, the same do the Catholics now pay to their saints and martyrs; as their own inscriptions plainly testify. These inscriptions, like that of the Pantheon, generally signify, that "the honours, which of old had been impiously given in that place to the false god, are now piously and properly transferred to the Christian saint:" or as one of their poets expresses himself with regard to St. George: Ut Martem Latii, sic nos Te, dive Georgi, As Mars our fathers once adored, so now To thee, O George! we humbly prostrate bow.-MIDDLETON. Everywhere throughout Italy may you see sacred inscriptions, speaking the pure language of Paganism, and ascribing the same powers, characters, and attributes to their saints, as had formerly been ascribed to the heathen gods. Witness the following examples+: * Deut. xii. 2, 3. † Vid. Boldonii Epigraphica, et Gruteri Corpus Inscriptionum. Boldonius censures the author of the last inscription for the absurdity of putting the saints before God himself; and imitating too closely the ancient inscription placed opposite to it, in which the same impropriety is committed with regard to Jupiter. "In the monkish rhymes which hang near the altar of S. Rosolia at Palermo, she is besought to protect her favourite city from earthquake, pestilence, and war: Nunc ô, Virgo gloriosa, Candens lilium, rubens rosa, Audi preces, audi vota Quæ profundit gens devota Terræmotum, pestem, bellum, Procul pelle; nec flagellum Quæ tuæ fidit pietati. Virgin, modest as the rose, Fairer than the lily's snows, Listen whilst our lips disclose A nation's prayer— Nature's scourges banish hence, Or grant us but thy firm defence, And come what dare.-BLUNT. "How little does this strain of supplication differ from that of propitiation addressed by Horace to Apollo * :” Hic bellum lacrimosum, hic miseram famem Vestrâ motus aget prece. Moved by your prayer the god of day A British or a Persian soil.-BLUNT. Notwithstanding this constant recurrence of the Roman Catholics to different saints in their different exigences, they affirm that the devotion paid to them goes no farther than to desire their prayers. Yet, what can we say of those miraculous images to be met with in *Blunt. every great town of Italy, but that some divinity or power is generally believed to be inherent in them? Are not the people persuaded that these images have sometimes moved themselves from one place to another; have wept, talked, and worked many miracles? And does not this necessarily imply the belief of a supernatural power inherent in them? In vain do Catholics declare, that they do not ascribe these miracles to any power in the image itself, but to the power of God, who is moved to work them by the prayers and intercession of his saints. How can we think that the Deity can be moved to exert his power so wonderfully for the confirmation of such ridiculous stories as those with which the Catholic legends abound: of pictures and statues, for instance, sent down from heaven; which, while they blasphemously impute them to the workmanship of saints or angels, or of God himself, are yet always so rudely and contemptibly executed, that an indifferent artist on earth would be ashamed to own them*. * "The Olympian Jove," says Gibbon, speaking of the introduction of images into the church, "created by the muse of Homer, and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius. "Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass; they are as bad as a group of statues!' It was thus that the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he had ordered and refused to accept."-Decline and Fall, Vol. 9, p. 121. |