, or that any confidence is to be placed
in them, as was formerly done by the heathens, who placed their hopes in
idols; but because the honor which is given them is referred to the
originals which they represent, so that by the images which we kiss, and
before which we uncover our heads or kneel, we adore Christ and venerate
His Saints, whose likeness they represent."(274)

Every Catholic child clearly comprehends the essential difference which
exists between a Pagan idol and a Christian image. The Pagans looked upon
an idol as a god endowed with intelligence and the other attributes of the
Deity. They were therefore idolaters, or _image worshipers_. Catholic
Christians know that a holy image has no intelligence or power to hear and
help them. They pay it a relative respect--that is, their reverence for the
copy is proportioned to the veneration which they entertain for the
heavenly original to which it is also referred.

For the sake of my Protestant readers I may here quote their own great
Leibnitz on the reverence paid to sacred images. He says, in his _Systema
Theologicum_, p. 142: "Though we speak of the honor paid to images, yet
this is only a manner of speaking, which really means that we honor not
the senseless thing which is incapable of understanding such honor, but
the prototype, which receives honor through its representation, according
to the teaching of the Council of Trent. It is in this sense, I take it,
that scholastic writers have spoken of the same worship being paid to
images of Christ as to Christ our Lord Himself; for the act which is
called the worship of an image is really the worship of Christ Himself,
through and in the presence of the image and by occasion of it; by the
inclination of the body toward it as to Christ Himself, as rendering Him
more manifestly present, and raising the mind more actively to the
contemplation of Him. Certainly, no sane man thinks, under such
circumstances, of praying in this wise: 'Give me, O image, what I ask; to
thee, O marble or wood, I give thanks;' but 'Thee, O Lord, I adore; to
Thee I give thanks and sing songs of praise.' Given, then, that there is
no other veneration of images than that which means veneration of their
prototype, there is surely no more idolatry in it than there is in the
respect shown in the utterance of the Most Holy Names of God and Christ;
for, after all, names are but signs or symbols, and even as such inferior
to images, for they repr