Then began the solicitations addressed to men doomed to death, that they would be mindful of the survivors; and the agreements of companions, that whichever should first depart should petition at the foot of the heavenly throne for his mortal friend. In a few more years arose the custom of invoking the spirits supposed to hover near the tombs; some hesitation being implied in the expression 'if they were indeed present, and had any influence in things below.' It was yet a long time before prayer was offered to Saints in general, and in the public services of the Church. That the practice, if it had been originated, was not approved by the Fathers of the Church in the third century, we know on the direct testimony of Origen, who says that men are not to pray to any derived being (not even to Christ himself), but to God the Father of all. Austin disapproved of praying _for_ the Saints, though he believed that the Church might be helped by their intercession; at the same time acknowledging, 'It is true the Saints do not themselves hear what passes below, but they hear of it by others who die and go to them.' The time when the custom of invoking the Saints was first countenanced by the Church may be fixed about the end of the fourth century. In the fifth, all opposition to it had ceased, and the images of Martyrs began to be regarded with peculiar honor; it being imagined by many that the homage paid to the image drew down into it the propitious presence of the celestial being whom it represented; in the same manner as the statues of Jupiter and other pagan gods were believed by heathen worshipers to become instinct with divine life. The temples of the Martyrs were now, as Theodoret informs us, ornamented with little figures, of gold and silver, representing eyes, feet, hands, &c., deposited for the acceptance of the lords of the temples, as memorials of cures wrought by them on these several members: these memorials proclaiming the power of the dead; whose power, again, demonstrates their God to be the true God. How changed was this Christianity from that given by him who forbade his followers to ask anything even of him, because the Father himself loved them!