In this work it is expressly stated, that "as many separate devotions to the mother of God as you find in this book, are so many keys of heaven, which will open all paradise to you, provided you only practise them;" and afterward it is added, that "any _one_ of them is sufficient." Take the following specimen: "Salute the holy Virgin wherever you meet her image; repeat the little chaplet of the ten pleasures of the Virgin; often pronounce the name of _Mary_; commission the angels to give your duty to her; cherish a desire to build more churches to her than all the kings of the world put together; wish her a good day every morning, and a good night every evening; say the _Ave Maria_ every day, in honour of the heart of Mary." [23] In the earliest ages she was called Queen of angels and Mother of God; afterward, the spirit of controversy induced her advocates to adopt every possible device to make her considerable among heretics, and to accustom her devotees to extravagant expressions. She has been represented as the _disposer and depository of God's favours, the treasurer and queen of heaven, the spring and fountain of salvation and life, the mother of light, the intercessor between God and man, the hope of mankind, the ocean of the Deity_! Almost an absolute and sovereign power over her Son our Saviour has been ascribed to her. The psalter, nay the whole Bible, has been applied to her, and proofs by miracles and apparitions furnished, that the virgin appeases the wrath of Christ against sinners, and possesses the power of absolving, binding, and loosening. Temples and altars have been erected, and invocations addressed to her. The Jesuit, who published the Psalter of our Lady, in French, exhorts the devout Christian who pronounces these words in the introduction, _Holy Lady, open thou my lips_, &c. "to make two signs of the cross when he repeats them, one upon his lips with his thumb, and the other upon himself with his hand, as the priests do when they begin their canonical hours." This method, he assures us, will procure the devotee the honour and happiness of being canon or canoness of heaven; and our lady, to reward so conspicuous and instructive an act of devotion, will admit him into paradise. He gives a pattern of the vows which the devotee is to make "for Jesus and Mary's sake, and for all the lovers of them both, whether male or female." He describes the alliance to be made by him with the _most amiable and honourable mother of all mothers_, the act of repentance and contrition for the reconciliation of himself with her, and all the ceremonies, great and small, by which he may devote himself to the blessed Virgin.