tion;
and should even this reason appear insufficient, it is openly repugnant to
what the Holy Ghost has declared by the mouth of St Paul, and what can be
said more?

It is of no use to discuss the point whether it is right or wrong to have
relics merely to keep them as precious objects, without worshipping them,
because experience proves that this is never the case.

It is true that St Ambrose, in speaking of Helena, the mother of the
Emperor Constantine the Great, who sought with great trouble and expense
for the cross of our Lord, says that she did not worship the wood, but the
Lord who was suspended upon it. But it is a very rare thing, that a heart
disposed to value any relics whatever should not become to a certain
degree polluted by some superstition.

I admit that people do not arrive at once at open idolatry, but they
gradually advance from one abuse to another until they fall into this
extremity, and, indeed, those who call themselves Christians have, in this
respect, idolatrised as much as Pagans ever did. They have prostrated
themselves, and knelt before relics, just as if they were worshipping God;
they have burnt candles before them in sign of homage; they have placed
their confidence in them, and have prayed to them, as if the virtue and
the grace of God had entered into them. Now, if idolatry be nothing else
than the transfer elsewhere of the honour which is due to God, can it be
denied that this is idolatry? This cannot be excused by pretending that it
was only the improper zeal of some idiots or foolish women, for it was a
general custom approved by those who had the government of the church, and
who had even placed the bones of the dead and other relics on the high
altar, in the greatest and most prominent places, in order that they
should be worshipped with more certainty.

It is thus that the foolish fancy which people had at first for collecting
relics, ended in this open abomination,--they not only turned from God, in
order to amuse themselves with vain and corruptible things, but even went
on to the execrable sacrilege of worshipping dead and insensible
creatures, instead of the one living God. Now, as one evil never comes
alone but is always followed by another, it thus happened that where
people were seeking for relics, either of Jesus Christ or the saints, they
became so blind that whatever name was imposed upon any rubbish presented
to them, they received it without any examination or judg