In submitting to the reader's consideration the actual state of Roman Catholic worship at the present hour, I disclaim all desire to fasten upon the Church of Rome any of the follies and extravagancies of individual superstition. Probably many English Roman Catholics have been themselves shocked and scandalized by the scenes which their own eyes have witnessed in various parts of continental Europe. It would be no less unfair in us to represent the excesses of superstition there forced on our notice as the genuine legitimate fruits of the religion of Rome, than it would be in Roman Catholics to affiliate on the Catholics of the Anglican Church the wild theories and revolting tenets of all who assume the name of opponents to Rome. Well indeed does it become us of both Churches to watch jealously and adversely as against ourselves the errors into which our doctrines, if not preserved and guarded in their purity and simplicity, might have a tendency to seduce the unwary. And whilst I am fully alive to the necessity of us Anglican Catholics prescribing to ourselves a {242} practical application of the same rule in various points of faith and discipline, I would with all delicacy and respect invite Roman Catholics to do likewise. Especially would I entreat them to reflect with more than ordinary scrutiny and solicitude on the vast evils into which the practice of praying to saints and angels, and of pleading their merits at the throne of grace, has a tendency to betray those who are unenlightened and off their guard; and unless my eyes and my ears and my powers of discernment have altogether often deceived and failed me, I must add, actually betrays thousands. Often when I have witnessed abroad multitudes of pilgrims prostrate before an image of the Virgin, their arms extended, their eyes fixed on her countenance, their words in their native language pouring forth her praises and imploring her aid, I have asked myself, If this be not religious worship, what is? If I could transport myself into the midst of pagans in some distant part of the world at the present day; or could I have mingled with the crowd of worshippers surrounding the image of Minerva in Athens, or of Diana in Ephesus, when the servants of the only God called their fellow-creatures from such vanities, should I have seen or heard more unequivocal proofs that the worshippers were addressing their prayers to the idols as representations of their deities? Would any difference have appeared in their external worship? When the Ephesians worshipped their "great goddess Diana and the image which fell down from Jupiter," could their attitude, their eyes, or their words more clearly have indicated an assurance in the worshipper, that the Spirit of the Deity was especially present in that image, than the attitude, the eyes, the words of the pilgrims at Einsiedlin for example, are indications of the same {243} belief and assurance with regard to