esent much less vividly. So that when there is
question of honoring images, this is to be understood in the same way as
when it is said that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend, or that
the name of the Lord is blessed, or that glory be given to His Name. Thus,
the bowing before an image outside of us is no more to be reprehended than
the worshiping before an external image in our own minds; for the external
image does but serve the purpose of expressing visibly that which is
internal."

In the Book of Exodus we read: "Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven
thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the
earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.
Thou shalt not adore them nor serve them."(275) Protestants contend that
these words contain an absolute prohibition against the making of images,
while the Catholic Church insists that the commandment referred to merely
prohibits us from worshiping them as gods.

The text cannot mean the absolute prohibition of making images; for in
that case God would contradict Himself by commanding in one part of
Scripture what He condemns in another. In Exodus (xxv. 18), for instance,
He commands two cherubim of beaten gold to be made and placed on each side
of the oracle; and in Numbers (xxi. 8) He commands Moses to make a brazen
serpent, and to set it up for a sign, that "whosoever being struck by the
fiery serpents shall look upon it, shall live." Are not cherubim and
serpents the likenesses of creatures in heaven above, in the earth beneath
and in the waters under the earth? for cherubim dwell in heaven and
serpents are found on land and sea.

We should all, without exception, break the commandment were we to take it
in the Protestant sense. Have you not at home the portraits of living and
departed relatives? And are not these the likenesses of persons in heaven
above and on the earth beneath?

Westminster Abbey, though once a Catholic Cathedral, is now a Protestant
house of worship. It is filled with the statues of illustrious men; yet no
one will accuse the English church of idolatry in allowing those statues
to remain there. But you will say: The worshipers in Westminster have no
intention of adoring these statues. Neither have we any intention of
worshiping the statues of the Saints. An English parson once remarked to a
Catholic friend: "Tom, don't you pray to images?" "We pray before them,"
replied Tom; "but we have