lic approbation to his decrees against images, and when those
conscientious men refused to endorse his course they were all confined in
the imperial library, the building was set on fire and thirty thousand
volumes, the splendid basilica which contained them, innumerable paintings
and the librarians themselves were involved in one common destruction.

Constantine Copronymus prosecuted the vandalism of Leo, his predecessor.
Stephen, an intrepid monk, presented to the Emperor a coin bearing that
tyrant's effigy, with these words: "Sire, whose image is this?" "It is
mine," replied the Emperor. The monk then threw down the piece of money
and trampled it. He was instantly seized by the imperial attendants and
soon after put to a painful death. "Alas!" cried the holy man to the
Emperor, "if I am punished for dishonoring the image of a mortal monarch,
what punishment do they deserve who burn the image of Jesus Christ?"

The demolition of images was revived by the Reformers of the sixteenth
century. Paintings and statues were ruthlessly destroyed, chiefly in the
British Isles, Germany and Holland, under the pretext that the making of
them was idolatrous. But as the Iconoclasts of the eighth century had no
scruple about appropriating to their own use the gold and silver of the
statues which they melted, neither had the Iconoclasts of the sixteenth
century any hesitation in confiscating and worshiping in the idolatrous
churches whose statues and paintings they broke and disfigured.

A stranger who visits some of the desecrated Catholic churches of Great
Britain and the Continent which are now used as Protestant temples cannot
fail to notice the mutilated statues of the Saints still standing in their
niches.

This barbaric warfare against religious memorials was not only a grievous
sacrilege, but an outrage against the fine arts; and had the destroying
angels extended their ravages over Europe the immortal works of Michael
Angelo and Raphael would be lost to us today.

The doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding the use of sacred images is
clearly and fully expressed by the General Council of Trent in the
following words: "The images of Christ, and of His Virgin Mother, and of
other Saints, are to be had and retained, especially in churches; and a
due honor and veneration is to be given to them; not that any divinity or
virtue is believed to be in them for which they are to be honored, or that
any prayer is to be made to them