the Lord, saying, 'Though a host of
men were set against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid.'"

[Footnote 53: These observations may perhaps refer more
especially to the saints still on earth; but they apply to all
helpers, save God alone.]

He finishes the homily thus: "The righteous see three periods; the
present, the period of change when the Lord will judge, and that which
will be after the resurrection,--that is, the eternity of life in heaven
in Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."

Can this confessor of the Christian faith have ever taught his
fellow-believers to plead the merits of the saints, or to pray for their
intercessions? How strongly are the above sentiments contrasted with a
passage in the third of the spurious homilies called In Diversos; the
first clause of which is referred to by Bellarmin, as containing
Origen's approbation of giving honour to the saints[54].

[Footnote 54: I hardly need detain the reader by any proof of
the spuriousness of this passage; the whole work from which it
is taken is rejected altogether by the Benedictine editors:
"Reliqua ejusmodi spuria omittenda censuimus, qualia sunt ...
Homiliae in diversos;" and they have not allowed a single line of
it to appear in their volumes, not even in the small
character.--Vol. iv. p. 1.]

"The memory of these (the Innocents) is always {149} celebrated, as is
right, in the Churches. These, therefore, since they were unjustly or
impiously put to death in peace and rest, having suffered much for the
name of the Lord, were taken from this world, to remain in the eternal
Church for ever in Christ. But their parents for the merits of their
suffering will receive a worthy recompense of reward from the just and
eternal Lord God." Here we have strongly marked indeed the difference
between Origen himself, and the errors fastened upon him by the design
or ignorance of subsequent times.

Were not his testimony a subject of great moment, I should plead guilty
to having detained my readers too long on Origen; and yet I cannot
dismiss him without first refreshing our minds with the remembrance of
some of his beautiful reflections on a Christian's prayer. We need not
read them with a controversial eye, and they may be profitable to us
all.

"I think, then, (says this early teacher in Christ's school) that when
proceeding to prayer, a Christian will be more readily disposed,