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Such, Christian brethren, is the result of our inquiries into the real practice of the Church of Rome with regard to the worship of the Virgin Mary at the present day, in every part of the world where allegiance to that Church is acknowledged.  Can we wonder that individuals, high in honour with that Church, have carried out the same worship to far greater lengths?  I have ever present to my mind the principle of fixing upon the Church of Rome herself that only which is to be found in her canons, acknowledged decrees, and formularies.  And unhappily of that which directly contravenes the Gospel-rule and primitive practice, far more than enough is found in her authorized rituals to compel all who hold to the Gospel and the integrity of primitive times, to withdraw their assent and consent from her worship.  But with this principle before us, surely common justice and common prudence require that we should see for ourselves the practical workings of the system.  “By their fruits ye shall know them,” is a principle no less sanctioned by the Gospel than suggested by common sense and experience And, indeed, the shocking lengths to which priests, bishops, cardinals, and canonized persons have gone in this particular of the worship of the Virgin, might well {348} cause every upright and enlightened Roman Catholic to look anxiously to the foundation; to determine honestly, though with tender caution and pious care, for himself, whether the corruption be not in the well-head, whether the stream do not flow impregnated with the poison from the very fountain itself; whether the prayers authorized and directed by the Church of Rome to be offered to the Virgin be not in themselves at variance with the first principles of the Gospel—­Faith in one God, the giver of every good, and in one Mediator and Intercessor between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, whose blood cleanseth from all sin:  in a word, to see whether all the aberrations of her children in this department of religious duty have not their prototype in the laws and ordinances, the rules and injunctions, the example and practice of their mother herself.

Indeed I am compelled here to say, that, however revolting to us as believers in Jesus, and as worshippers of the one true God, are those extravagant excesses into which the votaries of the Virgin Mary have run, I have found few of their most unequivocal ascriptions of divine worship to her, for a justification of which they cannot with reason appeal to the authorized ritual of the Church of Rome.

In leaving this point of our inquiry, I would suggest two considerations:  1st, If it was intended that the invocation of the Virgin should be exclusively confined to requests, praying her to pray and intercede by prayer for the petitioners, why should language be addressed to her which in its plain, obvious, grammatical, and common sense interpretation conveys the form of direct prayers to her for benefits believed to be