closer relation to our Blessed Lord. Nor, again, does the case seem to
be at all altered, if the brother whose prayers we ask has been dead a
long time, and has, by the common consent of Catholic Christendom, been
received into the number of the saints. The ways in which the human mind
works under the influence of prejudice are always interesting. There are
many devout persons who feel that it is a valuable element in their
religion to have the privilege of following the Kalendar of the Church
and to keep the saints' days therein indicated by attendance at divine
service; who yet would be horrified if it were suggested that a prayer
should be offered to the saint whose day is being observed, and that the
saint should be made the object of an act of worship. But what
essentially _is_ the keeping of a saint's day, with a celebration of the
Holy Communion with special collect, epistle and gospel, but an act of
worship _(dulia)_ of the saint? The nature of the act would be in no way
changed if in addition to our accustomed collects there were added one
which plainly asked for the prayers of the saint in whose honour we are
keeping the feast.

In the worship of the Church of God a place apart is assigned to the
honour to be paid to the blessed Mother of our Lord. As the highest of
all creatures, as highly favoured above all, as she whom God chose to be
the Mother of His Son, the devout thought of generations of Christians
has felt that their recognition of her relation to God in the
Incarnation called for a special degree of honour rightly to express it.
The thought of the faithful lingers about all that was in any degree
associated with the coming of God in the flesh: so great was the
deliverance thereby wrought for man that man's gratitude ever seeks new
means of expression and ever finds the means inadequate to his love.
Many of the expressions that are found in devotional writers associated
with the cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary are an outcome of this