not for that reason be the correctest or the most
important. And just like this will be the case of the divine communion,
which the simple saint may feel, and the subtle theologian analyse.

But it will be well to observe, further, that the simplicity of a
religion can of itself be no test of the probable truth of it. And in
the case of natural religion, what is called simplicity is in general
nothing more than vagueness. If _simplicity_ used in this way be a term
of praise, we might praise a landscape as simple because it was
half-drowned in mist. As a matter of fact, however, the religion of the
Catholic Church, putting out of the question its theology, is a thing
far simpler than the outside world supposes; nor is there a doctrine in
it without a direct moral meaning for us, and not tending to have a
direct effect on the character.

But the outside world misjudges of all this for various reasons. In the
first place, it can reach it as a rule through explanations only; and
the explanation or the account of anything is always far more intricate
than the apprehension of the thing itself. Take, for instance, the
practice of the invocation of saints. This seems to many to complicate
the whole relation of the soul to God, to be introducing a number of new
and unnecessary go-betweens, and to make us, as it were, communicate
with God through a dragoman. But the case really is very different. Of
course it may be contended that intercessory prayer, or that prayer of
any kind, is an absurdity; but for those who do not think this, there
can be nothing to object to in the invocation of saints. It is admitted
by such men that we are not wrong in asking the living to pray for us.
Surely, therefore, it is not wrong to make a like request of the dead.
In the same way, to those who believe in purgatory, to pray for the dead
is as natural and as rational as to pray for the living. Next, as to
this doctrine of purgatory itself--which has so long been a
stumbling-block to the whole Protestant world--time goes on, and the
view men take of it is changing. It is becoming fast recognized on all
sides that it is the only doctrine that can bring a belief in future
rewards and punishments into anything like accordance with our notions
of what is just or reasonable. So far from its being a superfluous
superstition, it is seen to be just what is demanded at once by reason
and morality; and a belief in it to be not an intellectual assent only,
b