Is It Honest? [pp. 239-255]

Is it Hoizest?
ence which we should suppose even
our Protestant doctor capable of per ceiving and recognizing.
The preacher forgets that what is
denied by the tract is, that we pay
divine honors to sacred images and
pictures, and cites ample authority
to prove that we do not pay divine
honors to them or through them. We
offer them no sacrifices, and we offer
themn no prayers or praises, even as
symbols or as memorials of a worth
they represent. They are never the
media through which we honor that
worth; but we honor them for the
sake of the worth to which they are
related, as the pious son honors the
picture of his mother, the patriot
the picture of the father of his
country, or the lover the portrait of
his mistress. The respect we pay
them springs from one of the deepest
and purest principles of human nature, and can be condemned only by
those who hold that there is nothing
good in nature, and condemn as evil
and only evil whatever is natural.
The minister thinks that, even
should enlightened and intelligent
Catholics understand the question as
explained by the catechism and defined by the Council of Trent, yet
ignorant Catholics may not; and
with them the honors paid to images
and pictures actually degenerate into
idolatry. He asks:
"But how in this respect do the people
of modern Italy differ from those of ancient
and heathen Italy? Do the practices of the
people there correspond to the doctrines of
the theologians, or have they, as of old time,
'bettered the instruction?' Do they pay no
special veneration, as if there were some special virtue in the image itself, to those images that. are reputed to bleed or sweat, or to
the pictures that wink? If it was only as
a guide of the thoughts toward the person
represented that the image or picture
served, then one image would serve as
well as another, except that those in which
the skill and genius of the artist had most
excelled to represent in touching and vivid
portraiture the object of the worship, might
be preferred above ruder and coarser works.
But as I have passed from church to church
in those lands in which the Roman system
has had unlimited opportunity to work itself
out into practice, and have' beheld the de votions' of the people, I have seen certain
statues frequented by a multitude of wor shippers, and visited by pilgrims from afar,
who had come to bow down before them,
and hung with myriads of votive offerings
-waxen effigies of arms and legs and other
members that had been healed in conse quence of prayers to that particular image.
And one fact, which I did not then appre ciate the bearing of, was constantly observed
by myself and my companion-that these
objects of special worship and veneration
were never works of superior art, but com monly rude, and sometimes even grotesque.
The inexpressibly beautiful and touching
statue by Berninii, of the Virgin holding
upon her knees the body of the dead Jesus,
is in the crypt of St. Peter's, and admiring
critics go down to study it by torchlight.
But the image which is adored is a grimy
bronze idol above it in the nave of St.
Peter's, which is so venerated as the statue
of that apostle that the toes of the ex tended foot have been actually kissed away
by the adorations of the faithful."
It is very evident that the preach er, whatever opportunities he may
have had, knows very little of the
Catholic people in general, or of the
Italian people in particular, and his
guesses would deserve more respect
if made in relation to his own people.
Protestants have no distinctive worship which can be offered to God
alone, and are therefore very poor
judges of what they may see going
on before their eyes among a Catholic people. The Church is responsible only for the faith she teaches
and the practices she enjoins, approves, or permits. If the people
depart from this faith and abuse
these practices in their practical devotion, the fault, since she takes
away no one's freedom, is theirs, not
hers. The worship that Catholics
render to God, the honor they pay
to the saints, and the respect they
entertain for sacred images, differs
245