and degrading thought.  Mariolatry, like idolatry, is the outgrowth of the religion of nature.  The carnal heart is at enmity with God.  It prefers to worship something besides God, and so in the old dispensation it found its idol in the hero.  As the heathen counted for divine the legislative wisdom of the man,—­manly strength, manly truth, manly justice, manly courage, Hercules with his club, Jupiter with his thunderbolt, so Baal, representing the primeval power of nature, became the object of idolatrous worship.  After Christ, partly because of the new spirit which pervaded the world, and largely because the carnal heart, ruled by Satan, is glad of any pretext to neglect Christ, Mary, the mother, became preferable to Christ the Son.  Salvation depends upon faith in Christ.  Whosoever believeth in the Son hath everlasting life.  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  This being true, a belief in Mary as an intercessor is as sinful in God’s sight, and is as directly opposed to a faith in Christ, as was a belief in Baal or Jupiter.  By whatever means Satan induces men to reject Christ, he ruins them, and destroys their hope of salvation.  Satan induced Eve to reject God, to believe in him, and to serve him.  There is no evidence that Mary would have consented to occupy the place to which an idolatrous world has raised her, but Satan cares not for that, so that “he may work with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.”

The peril arising from the perversion’s of biblical truth is illustrated by the history of the diaconate as well as by the history of the motherhood of Jesus.  The influences set in motion by the life of Christ deserve to be carefully pondered.  Perverted, they have helped on error.  Used and employed as Christ designed them, they are subservient of the highest interests of society.  Truly has it been said, The life and the cross of Christ shed a splendor from heaven upon a new and till then unheard of order of heroism—­that which may be called the feminine order—­meekness, endurance, long-suffering, the passive strength of martyrdom.  For Christianity does not say, “Honor to the wise,” but, “Blessed are the meek.”  Not “Glory to the strong,” but “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  Not the Lord is a man of war; Jehovah is his name, but God is love.  In Christ, not intellect, but love, is glorified.  In Christ is magnified, not force of will, but the glory of a Divine humility.  He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God hath also exalted Him.  Therefore it was, that from that time forward, woman assumed a new place in the world.  It is not to mere civilization, but to the spirit of life in Christ, that woman owes all she has and all she has yet to gain.  In Christ, manly and womanly characteristics were united, and