rs to me
that the application of purely scenic precepts to the house of God is
something very like converting divine service into a comedy.

The limits of this essay allow me not to discuss the chances of an
iconolatric reaction in our days. I shall only observe, that in several
countries where the iconoclasts of the Reformation had gained a
predominant position, they were entirely crushed by the iconolatric
reaction, and that a _fond alliance of females and monks_, supported by
the ruling powers of the state, achieved in these parts as great a victory
as that which it obtained in the east under Irene and Theodora, not only
over the reason of man, but even over the authority of the Word of God;
and I believe that the only human means of preventing similar
contingencies are free institutions, which allow the fullest liberty of
discussion in regard to all religious opinions.

I have said before, p. 82, that the Pope opposed the abolition of images
proclaimed by the Emperor Leo III., and that this opposition was shared by
the imperial provinces of Italy, which revolted on that occasion against
their sovereign, and separated from the Byzantine empire. It was therefore
natural that the second Council of Nice, which restored the worship of
images, should obtain the approbation of Pope Hadrian I.; but his desire
to impose the enactments of that council upon the churches of the West met
with a decided opposition on the part of Charlemagne. This great monarch,
who is so celebrated by his efforts to convert the Pagan Saxons,
prosecuted with all the barbarity of his age, and whom the church has
placed amongst her saints, was so offended by the enactments of the second
Council of Nice in favour of the worship of images, that he composed, or
what is more probable, ordered to be composed in his name, a book against
that worship, and sent it to Pope Hadrian I., as an exposition of his own
sentiments, as well as of those of his bishops, on the subject in
question. This work, though written in violent language, contains many
very rational views about images, and unanswerable arguments against all
kinds of adoration offered to them. The substance of this celebrated
protest is as follows:--

Charlemagne says, that there is no harm in having images in a church,
provided they are not worshipped; and that the Greeks had fallen into two
extremes, one of which was to destroy the images, as had been ordained by
the Council of Constantinople,