worship. But what essentially is the keeping of a saint's day, with a celebration of the Holy Communion with special collect, epistle and gospel, but an act of worship (dulia) of the saint? The nature of the act would be in no way changed if in addition to our accustomed collects there were added one which plainly asked for the prayers of the saint in whose honor we are keeping the feast.

In the worship of the church of God a place apart is assigned to the honor to be paid to the Blessed Mother of our Lord. As the highest of all creatures, as highly favored above all, as she whom God chose to be the Mother of His Son, the devout thought of generations of Christians has felt that their recognition of her relation to God in the Incarnation called for a special degree of honor rightly to express it. The thought of the faithful lingers about all that was in any degree associated with the coming of God in the flesh: so great was the deliverance thereby wrought for man, that man's gratitude ever seeks new means of expression and ever finds the means inadequate to his love. Many of the expressions that are found in devotionaì writers associated with the cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary are an outcome of this attitude of mind. To those who are unused to them they seem exaggerated; in the vast mass of the devotional writings of Catholic Christendom there is no difficulty in finding expressions which are exaggerated; but it is well to remember when thinking of this that the exaggeration is the exaggeration of love. The tendency of love is to exaggerate the forms of expression. It is however, we feel on reflection, an error to judge by the exaggeration rather than by love. It is perhaps well to ask ourselves whether we are saved from exaggeration by greater sanity or by lesser love.

But exaggeration apart, this feeling of the unique position of the Blessed Mother in relation to the Incarnate Son, as calling forth a special honor for her is embodied in the designation of the honor to be rendered her as hyperdulia— a specially devoted service. It is hardly necessary after what has been said to point out that even here in the highest honor rendered to any saint there is no passing of the infinite gulf which separates Creator from creature, any infringement upon the honor of God. No Catholic could dream that Blessed Mary would be in any wise honored by the attribution to her of what belongs to her Son. These are no doubt commonplaces, but it is better to be commonplace than to be misunderstood. The intercession that is asked of the Blessed Mother is the intercession of one who by God's election is more closely associated with God than any other human being is or can be. Her power of prayer is felt to proceed from the depth of her sanctity; from, in other words, the perfection of her relation to her Blessed Son Who is the only Mediator and the Saviour of us all.

Let me say in conclusion that this giving of honor to our Lord, and to all His saints as united to Him, and the celebrations of their days according to the church's year, and the asking of the help of their intercession in all the needs of our lives, is not simply a thing to be tolerated in those who are inclined to it, is not simply a privilege which we are entitled to if we care for it, but is a duty which all Christians ought to fulfil because otherwise they are failing to make real to them a very important article of the Christian creed. The Communion of Saints, like all other articles of the creed, needs to be put into active use, and will be when we believe it as distinguished from assent to it. When we believe that all who live unto God in the Body of His

dear Son are inspired with active love one toward another, we shall ourselves feel the impulse of that love, and be compelled both to seek an outlet for it toward all other members of the Body, and also will equally feel compelled to seek our share in the action of that love by asking for the prayers of the saints for ourselves and for all in whom we are interested. Then will we find the "worship of the saints" one great means whereby we can worship the God of the saints by the devout recognition of the greatness of His work in them. May God be praised and glorified in all His saints!

PR

The Sin of Proselyting

REV. MARSHALL M. DAY, B.D.

ERHAPS you may have read "Upsidonia", by that charming novelist of manners, Archibald Marshall. If so, you will recall the bewilderment which overcomes the hero when, after attempting to give a halfcrown to a somewhat insolent beggar, he finds himself arrested as a common footpad, charged with attempting to force money on a nobleman. Somewhat the same sensation possessed me, not so very long ago, on reading a newspaper account of a public utterance by a leading rabbi in one of our larger seaports. The reverend gentleman declared that he had been at first actively opposed to a certain church mission for work among Jewish immigrants, but had withdrawn that opposition after a conversation with the bishop, in which he was delighted to learn that it was by no means the purpose of the mission to Christianise any Jews, but merely to

look after their social and economic welfare, and to hasten them on the road to becoming good Americans. Considering that these Christians were disciples of a Savior who commanded them to go and make disciples of all the nations, and moreover to begin at Jerusalem, I can easily sympathise with the good rabbi's blunder. In fact I should have made it myself.

But still, this is in the past; and I should not mention it, if it were not symptomatic of a tendency that is very widespread, at least in our American Christianity. A few months ago I was talking with a Lutheran friend who is a singer in a Universalist Church. I was asking how he was impressed by a new pastor, a very learned man, who had recently taken charge of the parish. He answered: "I don't care so much for him, he insists on preaching Universalism." I asked him for what else he thought the good man was paid by a Universalist congregation. Being a Lutheran, he saw the point, and I thought no more of the incident. Some weeks later I met the same objection, made this time by one of our leading Baptist ministers. "What do you think about H- and the things he is putting in the paper every Monday? I must say I am disappointed to find him insisting so on putting his Baptist ideas before the general public." I replied that if a man accepted a salary for propagating certain ideas, the least he could do in common honesty was to propagate them, and left my ministerial friend aghast with a new disappointment, at the gaping joint I had exposed in my hitherto impregnable moral armor. It almost looked as if I approved of proselyting, that is of the attempt to make converts to the particular system to which any given minister is accredited, and which he has, by accepting such authorization, bound himself to uphold.