ed will never find
Its way with so much quickness to the mind,
As that, when faithful eyes are messengers,
Unto himself the fixed spectator bears."

"The remark of a heathen poet is corroborated by the observations of the
most celebrated amongst ancient and modern Christian writers. So persuaded
was St Paulinus of Nola, fourteen hundred years ago, of the efficacy
possessed by paintings for conveying useful lessons of instruction, that
he adorned with a variety of sacred subjects the walls of a church which
he erected, and dedicated to God in honour of St Felix.

"Prudentius assures us how much his devotion was enkindled, as he gazed
upon the sufferings of martyrs, so feelingly depicted around their tombs
and in their churches. On his way to Rome, about the year 405, the poet
paid a visit to the shrine of St Cassianus, at Forum Cornelii, the modern
Imola, where the body of that Christian hero reposed, under a splendid
altar, over which were represented, in an expressive picture, all the
sufferings of his cruel martyrdom.(65) So moved was Prudentius, that he
threw himself upon the pavement, kissed the altar with religious
reverence, and numbering up with many a tear those wounds that sin had
inflicted upon his soul, concluded by exhorting every one to unite with
himself in intrusting their petitions for the divine clemency to the
solicitude of the holy martyr Cassianus, who will not only hear our
request, but will afford us the benefit of his patronage."(66)

The anecdote of Prudentius evidently proves that what originally had been
intended for the instruction of the people, may very easily become an
object of their adoration. If a man of a superior education, like
Prudentius,(67) could be carried away by his feelings in such a manner as
to address his prayers to a dead man, how much greater must be the effect
of images upon less cultivated minds! and I have related, p. 88, on the
authority of the great Roman Catholic historian, Fleury, that the fathers
of the second Council of Nice, who, according to the same authority, were
a very ignorant set, shed tears at the sight of an image represented in an
absurd and fictitious story.

Such are the effects produced in teaching religion by means of images.
There can be no doubt about the truth of the observations contained in the
lines of Horace, which the author of "Hierurgia" quotes in defence of
images; but these observations refer to the theatre, and it appea