But when we are required either to address our supplications to her, or else to sever ourselves from the communion of a large portion of our fellow-Christians, we have no room for hesitation; the case offers us no alternative. Our love of unity must yield to our love {271} of truth; we cannot join in that worship which in our conscience we believe to be a sin against God. Whether we are right or wrong in this matter, God will himself judge: and, compared with his acquittal and approval, the severity of man's judgment cannot turn us aside from our purpose. But before any one pronounces a sentence of condemnation against us, or of approval on himself, it well becomes him patiently and dispassionately to weigh the evidence; lest his decision may not be consistent with justice and truth. In addition to what has been already said on the general subject of addressing our invocation to any created being--to any one among the principalities and thrones, dominions, powers, angels, archangels, and all the hosts of heaven, to any one among the saints, martyrs, confessors, and holy men departed hence in the Lord--I would submit to my brethren of the Roman Catholic Church some considerations specifically applicable to the case of the blessed Virgin, and to the practice of the Church of Rome in the religious worship paid to her. First, it will be well for us to possess ourselves afresh of whatever light is thrown on this subject by the Scriptures themselves. * * * * * SECTION II.--EVIDENCE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.