parts of this encyclical letter, God is thus addressed:  “We beseech thee, O Lord, with thy continual pity, guard thy family, that, leaning on the sole hope of heavenly grace, it may ever be defended by thy protection.” [Ut quae in sola spe gratiae coelestis innititur, tua semper protectione muniatur.—­Hiem, 364.  “Let us raise our eyes to the Blessed Virgin, who is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope.”]

Similar materials are abundant.  A whole volume, indeed, might readily be composed consisting solely of rules and instructions, confessions and forms of prayer, appertaining to the Virgin and the Saints, published by authority at the present day, both in our country and on the Continent, for the use of our Roman Catholic {384} brethren; but to which the word of God, and the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church, are in our estimation as much opposed as to the prayers of Bonaventura, or to the doctrine of either of the Bernardins.  It would, however, be unprofitable to dwell on this subject at any great length.  I will, therefore, only briefly refer to two publications of this sort, to which my own attention has been accidentally drawn:  “The Imitation of the Blessed Virgin,"[144] and “The Little Testament of the Holy Virgin."[145]

[Footnote 144:  “The Imitation of the Blessed Virgin, composed on the plan of the Imitation of Christ.  London, 1816.  Approved by T.R.  Asselini, Doctor of Sorbonne, last Bishop of Boulogne.  From the French.”]

    [Footnote 145:  “The Little Testament of the Holy Virgin,
    translated from the French, and revised by a Catholic Priest. 
    Third Edition.  Dublin, 1836.”]

The first professes to be “composed on the plan of the ’Imitation of Christ.’” This is, in itself, highly objectionable; its tendency is to exalt Mary, by association, to the same place in our hearts and minds, which Thomas a Kempis had laboured, in his “Imitation of Christ,” to secure for the Saviour; and it reminds us of the proceedings of Bonaventura, who wrote psalms to the honour of the Virgin after the manner which David used in his hymns to the Lord of Glory.  In this work we read the following prayer to the Virgin, which seems to be stained with the error, the existence of which elsewhere we have already noticed, of contrasting the justice and the stern dealings even of the Saviour, with the mercy, and loving-kindness, and fellow-feeling of Mary; making God an object of fear, Mary an object of love.

“Mother of my Redeemer, O Mary, in the last moments {385} of my life, I implore thy assistance with more earnestness than ever.  I find myself, as it were, placed between heaven and hell.  Alas! what will become of me, if thou do not exert, in my behalf, thy powerful influence with Jesus?...  I die with SUBMISSION since JESUS has ORDAINED it; but notwithstanding the natural horror which I have of death, I die with PLEASURE, because I die under THY protection.” [Chap. xiii. p. 344.]