had, of course, no desire to see the images of the saints treated in any way disrespectfully, the objector declares that "yet to go in pilgrimages to them, or to pray to them, not only seemed vain, considering that (if they can do anything) they can do no more for us among them all than Christ can Himself alone who can do all things, nor are they so ready to hear (if they hear us at all) as Christ that is everywhere." Moreover, to go a pilgrimage to one place rather than to another "seems to smell of idolatry," as implying that God was not so powerful in one place as He is in another, and, as it were, making God and His saints "bound to a post, and that post cut out and carved into images. For when we reckon we are better heard by our Lord in Kent than at Cambridge, at the north door of Paul's than at the south door, at one image of our Lady than at another," is it not made plain that we "put our trust and confidence in the image itself, and not in God and our Lady," and think of the image and not of what the image represents.

Further, "men reckon that the clergy gladly favour these ways, and nourish this superstition under the name and colour of devotion, to the peril of people's souls, for the lucre and temporal advantage that they themselves receive from the offerings" (p. 120).

Lest it may be thought that these objections to places of pilgrimage were merely such as Sir Thomas More invented to put into the mouth of the "objector" in order to refute them, the reader may like to have the words of a known advocate of the new ideas. Lancelot Ridley, in his expositions of some of the Epistles, states his views very clearly. "Ignorant people," he writes, "have preferred the saints before God, and put more trust, more confidence, (look for) more help and succour, in a saint than in God. Yea, I fear me that many have put their help and succour in an image made of stone or of wood by men's hand, and have done great honour and reverence to the image, believing that great virtue and great holiness

was in that image above other images. Therefore that image must have a velvet coat hanged all over with brooches of silver, and much silver hanged about it and on it, with much light burning before it, and with candles always burning before it. I would no man (should put out the light) in contempt of the saint whose image there is, but I would have this evil opinion out of the simple hearts that they should esteem images after the value they are, and put no more holiness in one image than in another, no more virtue in one than in another. It holds the simple people in great blindness, and makes them put great trust and (esteem) great holiness in images, because one image is called our Lady of Grace, another our Lady of Pity, another our Lady of Succour or Comfort; the Holy Rood of such a place, &c." And this he maintained, though he did not condemn images generally in churches. These he thought useful to remind people of God's saints and their virtues, and "to stir up our dull hearts and slothful minds to God and to goodness." What he objected to chiefly was the special places of pilgrimage and special images to which more than ordinary devotion was shown.1

In another of his Expositions, printed in 1540, Ridley again states his objections to the places of pilgrimage. "Some think," he writes, "that they have some things of God, and other part of saints, of images, and so divide God's glory, part to God and part to an image, of wood or of stone made by man's hand. This some ignorant persons have done in times past, and thanked God for

Lancelot Rydley. Exposition in the Epistell of Jude. London, Thomas Gybson, 1538, sig. B. v. In sermons and writings, pre-Reformation ecclesiastics strove to impress upon the minds of the people the true principles of devotion to shrines and relics of the saints. To take one example beyond what is given above. In The Art of Good Lyvyng and Good Deyng, printed in 1503, the writer says: "We should also honour the places that are holy, and the relics of holy bodies of saints and their images, not for themselves, but for that in seeing them we show honour to what it represents, the dread reverence, honour and love of God, after the intention of Holy Church, otherwise it were idolatry” (fol. 6).

their health and the blessed Lady of Walsingham, of Ipswich, St. Edmund of Bury, Etheldred of Ely, the Lady of Redbourne, the Holy Blood of Hayles, the Holy Rood of Boxley, of Chester, &c., and so other images in this realm to the which have been much pilgrimage and much idolatry, supposing the dead images could have healed them or could have done something for them to God. For this the ignorant have crouched, kneeled, kissed, bobbed and licked the images, giving them coats of cloth, of gold, silver, and of tissue, velvet, damask, and satin, and suffered the living members of Christ to be without a russet coat or a sackcloth to keep them from the cold."

Again in another place he says that his great objection to images is not that they may not be good in themselves and as a reminder of the holiness of the saints, but that they are used as a means of making money. "Who can tell," he writes, "half the ways they have found to get, yea to extort money from men by images, by pardons, by pilgrimages, by indulgences, &c. all invented for money." The above passages may be taken as fair samples of the outcry against shrines and pilgrimages raised by the English followers of Luther and the advocates of the religious changes generally. It will be noticed that the ground of the objections was in reality only the same as that which induced them to declare against any honour shown to images, whether of Christ or His saints. There is no suggestion of any special abuses connected with particular shrines and places of pilgrimage, such as is often hinted at by those who refer to Chaucer and Erasmus. In addition to the general ground of objection, the only point raised in regard to pilgrimages by the advocates for their suppression was that money was spent upon them which might have been bestowed more profitably on the poor, and that the clergy were enriched by the offerings made at the shrines visited. Sir Thomas More's

1 A Commentary in Englyshe upon the Ephesians, 1540, sig. A. ii.

reply to the latter suggestion has been already given, and elsewhere his views as to the general question of the danger of people mistaking the nature of the honour shown to images of the saints have been stated at length. With regard to his approval of the principle of pilgrimages there is no room for doubt.

"If the thing were so far from all frame of right religion," he says, "and so perilous to men's souls, I cannot perceive why the clergy, for the gain they get thereby, would suffer such abuses to continue. For, first, if it were true that no pilgrimage ought to be used, no image offered to, nor worship done nor prayer offered to any saint, then—if all these things were all undone (if that were the right way, as I wot well it were wrong), then to me there is little question but that Christian people who are in the true faith and in the right way Godward would not thereby in any way slack their good minds towards the ministers of His church, but their devotion towards them would more and more increase. So that if by this way they now get a penny they would not then fail to receive a groat; and so should no lucre be the cause to favour this way if it be wrong, whilst they could not fail to win more by the right.”

"Moreover, look through Christendom and you will find the fruit of those offerings a right small part of the living of the clergy, and such as, though some few places would be glad to retain, yet the whole body might easily forbear without any notable loss. Let us consider our own country, and we shall find that these pilgrimages are for the most part in the hands of such religious persons or of such poor parishes as have no great authority in the convocations. Besides this you will not find, I suppose, that any Bishop in England has the profit of even one groat from any such offering in his diocese. Now, the continuance or breaking of this manner and custom stands them specially in the power of those who take no profit by it. If they believed it to be (as you call it) superstitious

and wicked they would never suffer it to continue to the perishing of men's souls (something whereby they themselves would destroy their own souls and get no commodity either in body or goods). And beyond this, we see that the bishops and prelates themselves visit these holy places and pilgrimages, and make as large offerings and (incur) as great cost in coming and going as other people do, so that they not only take no temporal advantage, but also bestow their own money therein. And surely I believe this devotion so planted by God's own hand in the hearts of the whole Church, that is to say, not the clergy only, but the whole congregation of all Christian people, that if the spirituality were of the mind to give it up, yet the temporality would not suffer it."

It would be impossible, without making extensive quotations, to do justice to Sir Thomas More's argument in favour of the old Catholic practice of pilgrimages. He points out that the whole matter turns upon the question whether or no Almighty God does manifest His power and presence more in one place of His world than in another. That He does so, he thinks cannot be questioned; why He should do so, it is not for us to guess, but the single example of the Angel and the pool of Bethsaida related in St. John's Gospel is sufficient proof of the fact-at least to Sir Thomas More's intelligence. Moreover, he thinks also that in many cases the special holiness of a place of pilgrimage has been shown by the graces and favours, and even miracles, which have been granted by God at that particular spot, and on the "objector" waiving this argument aside on the plea that he does not believe in modern miracles, More declares that what is even more than miracles in his estimation is the "common belief in Christ's Church" in the practice.

As to believing in miracles; they, like every other fact, depend on evidence and proof. It is unreasonable in the highest degree to disbelieve everything which we have