ed, lingers around the leaves of the falling petals?

Who that has ever witnessed the laying down of life in ripened age, by
some great and noble type of our humanity, in whose heart the lion and
the lamb, the eagle and the dove have dwelt together, but has seemed to
breathe an atmosphere laden with power and love, strength, beauty and
gentleness, as the spirit passed forth at the call of Him who gave it
birth? And who has ever seen the portals of the spirit world open before
them, for one in whom all earthly trust, and confidence, and love were
centred, but has felt that an angel guardian lived for them in Heaven?
Is there no plea for saint worship? But, alas! the poetry and the truth
of the superstition became clouded, and were lost in the dark mists of
ignorance and worldliness, and from their decay sprung up, like a fungus
plant, the noxious idea of the efficacy of reliques, with the monstrous
absurdities that accompanied their presence. Confession and penance
merged into the sale of indulgences, purchased absolutions, and
interdicts; the sleep of the dead, into a belief in purgatorial fires,
voluntary seclusion from the gaieties and follies of the world, into
forced separation from its active duties; saint worship, image worship,
and picture worship gradually usurped the place of the worship of the one
God; the cross, from a symbol grew into an idol, and emblems, vestments,
and incense, losing their character, from the reality departing, whose
presence they should only shadow forth, grew into mere accumulations of
ceremonial, covering a decayed skeleton. In this process it is easy to
trace the influence of Pagan superstition. As the heathen world
gradually became converted to Christianity, objects in the new faith were
sought out, around which to cluster the observances and rites of the old
system. Thus the worship offered to Cybele, the great mother of the
gods, who among the innumerable deities of ancient Rome was pre-eminent,
was readily transferred to the madonna, from a fancied resemblance, and
as Juno, Minerva, Vesta, Pan, and others, were the especial guardians of
women, olive trees, bakers, shepherds, &c. &c. So Erasmus, Teodoro,
Genaro, and other saints received homage as the peculiar patrons of
individuals or classes. The Genii, Lares, and Penates, occupying the
Larrarium of the ancient houses, were replaced, or oftener rebaptized
under the names of a madonna, saints or martyrs; the Emperor Alexande