Claudius of Turin, a bishop who flourished about 795-839, was great in censuring the gross superstition attaching to the use of the cross and pilgrimages. Though a chaplain of King Louis I. of France, who became emperor, he devoted himself to purifying the ritual of the Church by writing commentaries on the Scriptures and exposing the abuses of image worship. He said those who worship the images of the saints have not forsaken idols, but changed their names. Whether the walls of churches are painted with figures of St. Peter and St. Paul or of Jupiter and Saturn, the latter are not gods, and the former are not apostles. Better worship the living than the dead. If the works of God's hands, the stars of heaven, are not to be worshipped, much less ought the works of human hands to be worshipped. Whoever seeks from any creature in heaven or on earth the salvation which he should seek from God alone is an idolater. Those who pretend to honour the memory of Christ's passion forget His resurrection. If one must worship every piece of wood bearing the image of the cross because Christ hung on the cross, for the same reason one should worship many other things with which Christ came in contact while living in the flesh. God has commanded us to bear the cross, not to adore it. Those are not adoring it who are unwilling to bear it either spiritually or bodily. In like manner it is foolish in people, and an undervaluing of spiritual instruction, to be always striving to go to Rome in order to obtain everlasting life. It is vain to ascribe so much merit to pilgrimages, and forget the seal of true penitence in the soul. One gets no nearer to St. Peter by finding himself on the spot where his body was buried, for the soul is the real man. In this manner Claudius displayed his aversion to the monastic life as misleading. It was thought that he must soon be proceeded against as a heretic; but after publishing works which made a great impression on his age, the bishop died. TRYING TO CONVERT THE IMAGE WORSHIPPERS.