Animated by the same sentiment of rendering all things subject to the Divinity, men consecrated to him the fruits of the earth, and invoked his blessing on the seedling buried in the soil. Familiar objects became typical of divine attributes, as water of the purity of Diana, and salt of the incorruptibility of Saturn; hence the sprinkling of the _aqua lustralis_ among the Romans on all solemn occasions, and the use of salt in their sacrifices. Even the scattering of a little dust on the forehead was to them expressive of the calm and tranquillity of death succeeding to the storms and passions of life. No doubt, had Dr. Draper recalled those lines of Virgil: “Hi motus animorum atque hæc certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt,” he would, in accordance with his peculiar logic, have perceived in the ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday another instance of a return to paganism. Without entering at greater length into those spontaneous expressions of reverence towards the Deity which abound in every religious system, and which well up from the human heart as a necessary confession of its dependence on a higher cause, we will hasten to the conclusion, implied in them, that there is an identity of external worship in all religions which, so far, proclaims an identity of origin. What, therefore, Dr. Draper pronounces to be a paganization of Christianity is nothing more than acceptance by it of those features of older creeds which are founded on truth, and spring from the constitution of human nature. What though the Romans did pay homage to Lares and Penates, to river gods and tutelary deities; should that fact stigmatize as idolatrous or heathenish the reverence exhibited by Christians towards the Blessed Virgin and the saints? Does not the fact rather indicate, by its very universality, that it is part of the divine economy, and that such worship best represents the wants of the human heart? Assuredly, this is not intended as a vindication of pagan practices, but aimed to show that, in the struggles of the human heart to satisfy its cravings, an undeserting instinct guides it along a path which, however tortuous and winding, leads in the end to truth. Draper’s charge of paganization in all respects resembles Voltaire’s assertion that Christianity is a counterfeit of Buddhism.