letter, saying, Noah, Daniel, and Job will not rescue sons or daughters; they only will be saved.  Let no {149} one of us put his trust in a just father, a holy mother, chaste brethren.  Blessed is the man who hath his hope in himself, and in the right way.  But to those who place confident trust in the saints, we bring forward no improper example,—­’Cursed is the man whose hope is in man;’ and again, ‘Trust ye not in man.’  And this also, ’It is good to trust in the Lord rather than in princes[53].’  If we must hope in some object, leaving all others, let us hope in the Lord, saying, ’Though a host of men were set against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid.’”

    [Footnote 53:  These observations may perhaps refer more
    especially to the saints still on earth; but they apply to all
    helpers, save God alone.]

He finishes the homily thus:  “The righteous see three periods; the present, the period of change when the Lord will judge, and that which will be after the resurrection,—­that is, the eternity of life in heaven in Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever.  Amen.”

Can this confessor of the Christian faith have ever taught his fellow-believers to plead the merits of the saints, or to pray for their intercessions?  How strongly are the above sentiments contrasted with a passage in the third of the spurious homilies called In Diversos; the first clause of which is referred to by Bellarmin, as containing Origen’s approbation of giving honour to the saints[54].

[Footnote 54:  I hardly need detain the reader by any proof of the spuriousness of this passage; the whole work from which it is taken is rejected altogether by the Benedictine editors:  “Reliqua ejusmodi spuria omittenda censuimus, qualia sunt ...  Homiliae in diversos;” and they have not allowed a single line of it to appear in their volumes, not even in the small character.—­Vol. iv. p. 1.]

“The memory of these (the Innocents) is always {149} celebrated, as is right, in the Churches.  These, therefore, since they were unjustly or impiously put to death in peace and rest, having suffered much for the name of the Lord, were taken from this world, to remain in the eternal Church for ever in Christ.  But their parents for the merits of their suffering will receive a worthy recompense of reward from the just and eternal Lord God.”  Here we have strongly marked indeed the difference between Origen himself, and the errors fastened upon him by the design or ignorance of subsequent times.

Were not his testimony a subject of great moment, I should plead guilty to having detained my readers too long on Origen; and yet I cannot dismiss him without first refreshing our minds with the remembrance of some of his beautiful reflections on a Christian’s prayer.  We need not read them with a controversial eye, and they may be profitable to us all.