tributed which does not exist, argument is useless.

Devotion to certain places, pilgrimages, even fasting and other bodily
macerations, were pagan customs. These, also, have been Christianized.
Buildings once consecrated to the worship of pagan gods, are now used as
Christian temples: what should we think of the person who should assert
that because pagan gods were once adored in these churches, therefore
the worship now offered in them was offered to pagan deities? The
temples, lite the customs, are Christianized.

The author of a very interesting article in the _Ulster Archaeological
Journal_ (vol. ix. p. 256), brings forward a number of Irish customs for
which he finds counterparts in India. But he forgets that in Ireland the
customs are Christianized, while in India, they remain pagan; and like
most persons who consider the Irish pre-eminently superstitious, he
appears ignorant of the teaching of that Church which Christianized the
world. The special "superstition" of this article is the devotion to
holy wells. The custom still exists in Hindostan; people flock to them
for cure of their diseases, and leave "rags" on the bushes as
"scapegoats," _ex votos_, so to say, of cures, or prayers for cures. In
India, the prayer is made to a heathen deity; in Ireland, the people
happen to believe that God hears the prayers of saints more readily than
their own; and acting on the principle which induced persons, in
apostolic times, to use "handkerchiefs and aprons" which had touched the
person of St. Paul as mediums of cure, because of his virgin sanctity,
in preference to "handkerchiefs and aprons" of their own, they apply to
the saints and obtain cures. But they do not believe the saints can give
what God refuses, or that the saints are more merciful than God. They
know that the saints are His special friends, and we give to a friend
what we might refuse to one less dear. _Lege totum, si vis scire totum_,
is a motto which writers on national customs should not forget.

Customs were probably the origin of laws. Law, in its most comprehensive
sense, signifies a rule of action laid down[152] by a superior. Divine
law is manifested (1) by the law of nature, and (2) by revelation. The
law of nations is an arbitrary arrangement, founded on the law of nature
and the law of revelation: its perfection depends obviously on its
correspondence with the divine law. Hence, by common consent, the
greatest praise is given to those laws of