otectress, may WATCH OVER US WRITING
TO YOU, AND LEAD OUR MIND BY HER HEAVENLY INFLUENCE to those counsels
which may prove most salutary to Christ's flock."

Let us substitute for the name of Mary, the holiest of all, The Eternal
Spirit of Jehovah Himself; and will not these words be a proper vehicle
of the sentiments of a Christian pastor? Let us fix upon Christmas-day,
or Easter, or Holy Thursday, and what word expressive {382} of gratitude
for past mercies to the supreme Giver of all good things, or of hope and
trust in the guidance of the Spirit of counsel, and wisdom, and
strength--of the most High God, who alone can order the wills and ways
of men--might not a bishop of Christ's flock take from this declaration
of the Sovereign Pontiff, and use in its first and natural sense, when
speaking of the Lord Jehovah Himself? "We select for the date of our
letter this most joyful day on which we celebrate the solemn festival of
the most blessed Redeemer's nativity, (or glorious resurrection, or
ascension,) that He who has been through every great calamity our patron
and protector, may watch over us writing to you, and lead our mind by
his heavenly influence to those counsels which may prove most salutary
to Christ's flock."

In these sentiments of the present Pope there is no allusion (as there
is in the other clause) to Mary's prayers and intercessions. Looking to
and weighing the words employed, and as far as words can be relied upon
as interpreters of the thoughts, looking to the spirit of his
profession, only one inference can be fairly drawn. However direct and
immediate the prayers of the suppliants may be to the Virgin for her
protection and defence from all dangers, spiritual and bodily, and for
the guidance of the inmost thoughts in the right way, (blessings which
we of the Anglican Catholic Church, following the footsteps of the
primitive flock of Christ, have always looked for at the hand of God
Almighty only, to be granted by Him for the sake of his blessed Son,)
such petitioners to Mary would be sanctioned to the utmost by the
principles and example of the present Roman Pontiff.

We have already, when examining the records of {383} the Council of
Chalcedon, compared the closing words of this encyclical letter with the
more holy and primitive aspirations of the Bishops of Rome and
Constantinople in those earlier days; and the comparison is striking
between the sentiments now expressed in the opening parts of