which can be without any impropriety called _iconolatry_, since
_idolatry_ may be perhaps considered as an expression too strong for ears
polite.

The struggle between the iconoclasts and the iconolaters, of which I have
given a mere outline, but which agitated the Eastern empire for nearly a
century and a half, ending in the complete triumph of the latter, deserves
the particular attention of all thinking Protestants; because it is
virtually the same contest that has been waged for more than three
centuries between Protestantism and Rome,(62) and which seems now to
assume a new phasis. I do not think that the ignorance of those times may
be considered as the principal cause of the triumph of the iconolatric
party, and that the spread of knowledge in our own day is a sufficient
safeguard against the recurrence of a similar contingency. There was in
the eighth and ninth centuries a considerable amount of learning at
Constantinople, where the treasures of classical literature, many of which
have since been lost, were preserved and studied.(63) The Greeks of that
time, though no doubt greatly inferior to the modern Europeans in physical
science, were not so in metaphysics and letters, whilst the gospel could
be read by all the educated classes in its original tongue, which was the
official, literary, and ecclesiastical language of the Eastern empire. The
Byzantine art was, moreover, very inferior to that of modern Europe, and
could not produce, except on some coarse and rustic intellects, that
bewitching effect, which the works of great modern painters and sculptors
often produce upon many refined and imaginative minds. It has been justly
remarked, by an accomplished writer of our day, that "the all-emancipating
press is occasionally neutralised by the soul-subduing miracles of
art."(64)

The Roman Catholic Church perfectly understands this _soul-subduing_ power
of art, and the following is the exposition of her views on this subject
by one of her own writers, whom I have already quoted on a similar
subject, p. 51.

"That pictures and images in churches are particularly serviceable in
informing the minds of the humbler classes, and for such a purpose possess
a superiority over words themselves, is certain.

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fldelibus et quae
Ipse sibi tradit spectator."

--_Horace de Arte Poetica_, v. 180.

"What's through the ear convey