what not superstitions, and vain carnal conceit besides, as if popery was coming back to take possession of the richly decorated fabric.

By the same means the Catholic church was drawn back, step by step, into the use of images.

The invisible and spiritual church having answered so well, and having grown and increased, some were not satisfied, but they must set about having a more visible church, which could be no otherwise than a carnal and material one, to be visible to the natural eye. Hence as wealth and power increased, splendid fabrics of stone, assuming the name of the Church, that is, the wood and stone church, began to be erected. These, of course, to have every thing en suite,' must be splendidly furnished and appointed, and a splendid and showy form of ritual must be introduced, attractive to the eye, a sort of eye service, the performance of which people who had sight might see, (and some peep at through such places as agioscopes,) with their carnal eyes, and be pleased, and gratified, and as some say edified, by the spectacle.

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By degrees decorations increased profusely, bare walls must be relieved, manufacturers, architect, sculptors, carvers, and men of like craft, must be called upon to furnish suitable plans, and elaborate decorative devices, which their fertile imaginations soon supplied in great variety and abundance, all more or less partaking of, and tending to the emblematical, symbolical, and allegorical system of the ancient heathen mythology: some might have urged one thing, and some another; some might have recommended, as appropriate ornaments for a sacred edifice, the introduction of images of saints, (such as reformers demolished,) and angels, the former placed in beautifully sculptured, and canopied niches; which things being adopted, and introduced, others might have gone a little further, and pointed out the incompleteness of the whole sculptured assemblage; to have all those cold stone images of saints visible without the image, or visible likeness of the invisible King of Saints and angels, also present. So that in the end this also appears to have been complied with.

And thus manufactures, or works of men's hands, carried the point. Of course it answered their purpose, that the thing should become quite the rage. And hence arose, and may still arise, the danger in the application of the decorative works of human art to the purposes of the divine worship of Him, who is spirit. "God is a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." *

So worship Him all ye nations, praise Him all ye people.

SECTION I.-IMAGES.

A few months since the following announcement appeared in a leading journal. * John. iv. 23, 24.

"Messrs

"CATHOLIC ART.

Beg respectfully to intimate, that they have now on hand a variety of new images, and other objects of devotion, to which they are desirous of inviting attention. Amongst them are, 1st, a beautiful image of the Madonna, five feet high, just executed price, in composition, painted, five guineas, or painted and gilt, six guineas. 2nd, an image of St. Aloysius, after an authentic model in possession of the family of the saint, nearly two feet high, 10s. 6d. Four angels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, &c., six shillings each. Christ bearing the cross, 7s. 6d. A variety of crucifixes, &c. Specimens of the beautiful Munich images; and every requisite for private oratories, chapels, or churches, supplied."

When such announcements as the above appear at the present day in a Protestant country, strangers abiding, like Paul at Athens, might be ready to imagine the existence of wide spreading superstition among us.

Although the ancient idolatry of Greece and Rome has vanished, like the darkness of benightenment, before that divine light that lightens every man that cometh into the world, yet, like natural darkness, and the man of sin, it is not entirely or totally chased away never to return, should an opportunity to do so occur; it still casts its shadow; it still lingers and lurks about the confines, ever ready to shade in whenever the true light becomes obscured. It still has its ramifications outwardly in the world, as in India and China, and inwardly in vain imaginations, as Paul saith to the ancient Romans,

"When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

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Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

*Rom. i. 21.