How many good and pious feelings must have been awakened from age to age in many minds, at the sight of the brazen serpent on the pole, the memorial of their fathers’ deliverance in the wilderness!  But when this awakening, this solemn memorial was corrupted into an idol, when men bowed down before it in superstition, it was the part of true piety to do as Hezekiah did, to dash it, notwithstanding all its solemn associations, into a thousand pieces.

Thus things good, things noble, things sacred, may all become idols.  To some minds truth is an idol, to others justice, to others charity or benevolence; and others are beguiled by objects of a different sort of sacredness:  some have made Christ’s mother their idol; some, Christ’s servants; some, again, Christ’s sacraments, and Christ’s own body, the Church.  If these may all be idols, where can we find a name so holy, as that we may surrender up our whole souls to it; before which obedience, reverence, without measure, intense humility, most unreserved adoration, may all be duly rendered.  One name there is, and one only; one alone in heaven and in earth; not truth, not justice, not benevolence, not Christ’s mother, not his holiest servants, not his blessed sacraments, not his very mystical body, but Himself only, who died for us and rose again, Jesus Christ, both God and Man.

He is truth, and he is righteousness, and he is love; he gives his grace to his sacraments, and his manifold gifts to his Church; whoever hath him hath all things; but if we do not take heed, whenever we turn our mind to any other object, we shall make it an idol and lose him.  Take him in all his fulness, not as God merely, not as man merely; not in his life on earth only, not in his death only, not in his exaltation at God’s right hand only; but in all his fulness, the Christ of God, God and Man, our Prophet, our Priest, our King and Lord, redeeming us by his blood, sanctifying us by his Spirit; and then worship him and love him with all the heart, and with, all the soul, and with all the strength; and we shall see how all evil will be barred, and all good will abound.  No man who worships Christ alone, can be a fanatic, nor yet can be a more philosopher; he cannot be bigoted, nor yet can he be indifferent; he cannot be so the slave of what be calls amiable feelings as to cast truth and justice behind him; nor yet can he so pursue truth and justice as to lose sight of humbler and softer feelings, self-abasement, reverence, devotion.  There is no evil tendency in the nature of any one of us, which has not its cure in the true worship of Christ our Saviour.  Let us look into our hearts, and consider their besetting faults.  Are we indolent, or are we active; are we enthusiastic, or are we cold; zealous or indifferent, devout or reasonable; whatever the inclination, or bias of our nature be, if we follow its kindred idol, it will be magnified and grow on to our ruin; if we worship Christ, it will be pruned and chastened, and made to grow up with opposite tendencies, all alike tempered, none destroyed; none overgrowing the garden, but all filling it with their several fruits; so that it shall be, indeed, the garden of the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord shall dwell in the midst of it.