angels (Col. ii. 18; Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 8, 9), and furnishes not a single example of an actual invocation of dead men ; and it nowhere directs us to address our prayers to any creature. Mere inferences from certain premises, however plausible, are, in such weighty matters, not enough. The ' Augustine, Serm. 159, 1 (al. 17): "Injuria est pro martyre orare, cujus nos debemus orationibus commendari." Serm. 284, 5 : " Pro martyribus non orat [ec- clesia], sed eorum potius orationibus se commendat." Serm. 285, 5 : " Pro aliis fidelibus defunctis oratur [to wit, for the souls in purgatory still needing purifica- tion] ; ■pro marUjrihus non oratur; tarn enim perfecti exierunt, ut non sint suscepti nostri, sed advocad." Yet Augustine adds the qualification : " Neque hoc in se, sed in illo cui capiti perfecta membra coheeserunt. Ille est enim vere advocatus umis, qui interpellat pro nobis, sedens ad dexteram Patris : sed advocatus unus, sicut et pastor unus." When the grateful intercessions for the departed saints and martyrs were exchanged for the invocation of their intercession, the old formula : " Annue nobis, Domine, ut animse famuli tui Leonis hsec prosit oblatio," was changed into the later: "Annue nobis, qusesumus, Domine, ut intercessione beati Leonis hffic nobis prosit oblatio." But instead of praying for the saints, the Catholic church now prays for the souls in purgatory. - Ambrose, De \'iduis, c. 9, calls the martyrs "nostri prsesules et speculatores (spectatores) vitae actuumque nostrorum." VOL. II. — 28 434: THIKD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590. intercession of the saints for us was drawn as a probal)le inference from the duty of all Christians to pray for others, and the invocation of the saints for their intercession was sup- ported by the unquestioned right to apply to living saints for their prayers, of which even the apostles availed themselves in their epistles. But here rises the insolvable question: 'Koy^r c?lu. departed saints hear at once the prayers of so many Christians on earth, unless they either partake of divine omnipresence or divine omniscience? And is it not idolatrous to clothe creatures with attributes which belong exclusively to Godhead ? Or, if the departed saints first learn from the omniscient God our prayers, 5J.nd then bring them again before God with their powerful intercessions, to what purpose this circuitous way? Why not at once address God immediately, who alone is able, and who is always ready, to hear His children for the sake of Christ? Augustine felt this difficulty, and concedes his inability to solve it. He leaves it undecided, whether the saints (as Je- rome and others actually supposed) are present in so many places at once, or their knowledge comes through the omni- science of God, or finally it comes through the ministry of angel?.' He already makes the distinction between Xarpela, or adoration due to God alone, and the invocatio {Bovkela) of the saints, and firmly repels the charge of idolatry, which the Manichffian Faustus brought against