ere illustrated by the life of Mary. She was considerate of
others. She was submissive. As has been said, "In the very outset of
the Bible, submission is revealed as her peculiar lot and destiny.
If you were merely to look at the words as they stand declaring the
results of the fall, you would be inclined to call that vocation of
obedience a curse but in the spirit of Christ it is transformed, like
labor, into a blessing." The origin or root of Mariolatry has been
accounted for in the following manner: "In all Christian ages the
especial glory ascribed to the Virgin Mother is purity of heart
and life. Gradually in the history of the Christian church, the
recognition of this became idolatry. The works of early Christian
art commonly exhibit the progress of this perversion. They show how
Mariolatry grew up. The first pictures of the early Christians simply
represent the woman. By and by we find outlines of the mother and the
child. In an after age, the Son is seen sitting on a throne, with the
mother crowned, but sitting, as yet, below him. In an age still later,
the crowned mother is on a level with the Son. Later still, the mother
is on a throne above the Son. And, lastly, a Romish artist represents
the Eternal Son, in wrath, about to destroy the earth, and the Virgin
Intercessor interposing, pleading by significant attitudes her
maternal rights, and redeeming the world from his vengeance. Such was,
in fact, the progress of virgin worship."

First, the woman reverenced for the Son's sake, then the woman
reverenced above the Son and adored. This is the history. To account
for it, various theories have been advocated. One, assuming it as
a principle that no error has ever spread widely that was not the
exaggeration or perversion of a truth, finds in the influence exerted
by Christ the germ out of which Mariolatry springs. But surely nothing
could be farther from what Christ taught. By word, by look, and by
action, Christ opposed the debasing and degrading thought. Mariolatry,
like idolatry, is the outgrowth of the religion of nature. The carnal
heart is at enmity with God. It prefers to worship something besides
God, and so in the old dispensation it found its idol in the hero.
As the heathen counted for divine the legislative wisdom of the
man,--manly strength, manly truth, manly justice, manly courage,
Hercules with his club, Jupiter with his thunderbolt, so Baal,
representing the primeval power of nature, became the ob