as their own: I mean the adoration of saints, and the pleading
of their merits at the throne of grace, instead of trusting to the alone
exclusive merits of the one only Mediator Jesus Christ our Lord, and
addressing God Almighty alone.

[Footnote 92: I believe the method best calculated to supply us
with the very truth is, as I have before observed, to trace the
conduct of Christians at the shrines of the martyrs, and follow
them in their successive departures further and further from
primitive purity and simplicity, on the anniversaries of those
servants of God. What was hailed there first in the full warmth
of admiration and zeal for the honour and glory of a national or
favourite martyr, crept stealthily, and step by step, into the
regular and stated services of the Church.]

I. In the original form of those prayers in which mention was made of
the saints departed, Christians addressed the Supreme Being alone,
either in praise for the mercies shown to the saints themselves, and to
the Church through their means; or else in supplication, that the
worshippers might have grace to follow their example, and profit by
their instruction. Such, for instance, is the prayer in the Roman
ritual[93] on St. {246} John's day[94] which is evidently the foundation
of the beautiful Collect now used in the Anglican Church,--"Merciful
Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church,
that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy Apostle and Evangelist
St. John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length
attain to the light of everlasting life, through Jesus our Lord. Amen."
Such too is the close of the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's
Church militant here on earth, offered in our Anglican service,--"We
bless thy holy name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith
and fear, beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good
examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.
Grant this, O Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our only Mediator and
Advocate. Amen."

[Footnote 93: The references will generally be given to the
Roman Breviary as edited by F.C. Husenbeth, Norwich, 1830. That
work consists of four volumes, corresponding with the four
quarters of the ecclesiastical year--Winter, Hiem.; Spring,
Vern.; Summer, _AEstiv_.; Autumn, Aut.; and the volumes will be
designated by the corresp