S. Andrew, Archbishop of Crete (d. 676), also preaching on the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God, says:—­“It is a wholly new sight, and one that surpasses the reason, that of a woman purer than the heavens entering heaven with her body.  As she was born without corruption, so after death her flesh is restored to life.”

In one of his sermons at the same feast, S. Germanus of Constantinople (d. 733), speaks thus:—­“It was impossible that the tomb should hold the body which had been the living temple of the Son of God.  How should your flesh be reduced to dust and ashes who, by the Son born of you, have delivered the human race from the corruption of death?”

Preaching on the same festival, S. John Damascene (d. 760) said:—­“Your flesh has known no corruption.  Your immaculate body, which knew no stain, was not left in the tomb.  You remained virgin in your child-bearing; and in your death your body was not reduced to dust but has been placed in a better and celestial state.”

There are one or two practical consequences of this doctrine concerning which, perhaps, it may be well to say a few words.  The first is as the result of such devotions to our Lady as are implied in, or have in fact followed, a belief in her assumption.  It is objected to them that even granting the truth of the fact of the assumption, still the stress laid on the fact and the devotions to our Lady which are held to be appropriate to it, are unhealthy in their nature, and do, in fact, tend to obscure the worship of our Lord:  that where devotions to our Lady are fostered, there devotion to our Lord declines.  That therefore instead of trying to advance the cultus of our Lady, we should do much better to hold to the sanity and reserve which has characterised the Anglican Church since the Reformation.

These and the like arguments seem to me to hang in the air and to be quite divorced from facts.  They imply a state of things which does not exist.  The assertion that where devotion to our Lady prevails devotion to our Lord declines is as far as possible from being true.  Where to-day is the Deity of our Lord defended most ardently and devotion to Him most wide spread?  Is it in Churches where devotion to our Lady is suppressed?  On the contrary, do you not know with absolute certainty, that in any church where you find devotion to our Lady encouraged, there will you find the Deity of our Lord maintained?  Has the Anglican “sanity and reserve” in regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary saved the Anglican Church from the inroads of unitarianism and rationalism?  Is it not precisely in those circles where the very virginity of our Lady is denied that the divinity of our Lord is denied also?  No, devotion to Mary is far indeed from detracting from the honour due to Mary’s Son.

And we cannot insist too much or too often that the doctrines of the Christian Church form a closely woven system such that none, even the seemingly least important, can be denied without injuring the whole.  No article of Christian belief expresses an independent truth, but always a truth depending upon other truths, and in its turn lending others its support.  To deny any truth that the mind of the Church has expressed is equivalent to the removal of an organ from a living body.