SERMON XIV.

VOWS.

"I will pay my vows unto the Lord.” — Ps. cxvi. 14.

AMONG the many rites which the Roman Catholic Church borrowed from the old pagan worship, was that of presenting votive offerings to places consecrated to devotion.

If at any time before the birth of Christ one entered a pagan temple, at Athens or Rome, he saw not only the image before which the devout prostrated themselves, and the smoke of the incense ascending in clouds before it, but all around the shrine he would observe the gifts of these worshippers, some laid at the feet of the idol, some hanging on the wall at its side. Wreaths of flowers, little bronze or silver images, jewels, statues, pictures, were the offerings, varying according to the means and taste of the giver.

You know what idea was at the bottom of all this. It was part of a worship which throughout had an object of sense to represent an emotion of the heart. Men then had not abstract terms, nor' abstract ideas. They were in such bondage to materialism that they must have something which

they could see and handle to stand for everything they felt; and the invisible idea was made a reality only through its visible representative.

Thus God was a reality only by means of the idol. The ascent of prayers to heaven was a reality only by means of the incense. Holy resolutions were realities only by means of the votive offerings.

In the childhood of our race these outward objects were precisely what a little girl's doll, or a little boy's toy-horse, is to childhood still, giving an objective reality to rising feelings incapable as yet of being abstractly grasped and stated. Idolatry had its necessary place, its beneficent uses; and as long as men are incapable of anything better we should excuse it in them, as God excused it, for, as St. Paul said in his speech at Athens, "the times of this ignorance God winked at.”

The Roman Catholic Church adopted a great many of these pagan forms; or rather it would be a better statement to say that these pagan forms survived, and adapted themselves to Christian usage. Who can think this was strange? The great body of the first converts to Christianity were as ignorant as their heathen ancestors. They were equally incapable of abstract ideas. They just as much needed an object of sense to express a feeling of the heart. Hence the Roman Catholic Church had images to verify the idea of spiritual beings, and incense to verify the ascent of prayers,

Votive offerings are not so common in the wor ship of that Church at the present day, as the other things I have named; but in the older and less educated countries of that communion one will find these offerings still presented. All through Italy, in the great cathedrals, at the tombs of renowned men, at the shrines of saints, before the image of the Virgin, you may see thousands of these gifts, marking some solemn event or crisis in the giver's life. A wreath of evergreen, a silver cross, a silver heart, a crucifix, a burning lamp, are the most common; while a chapel, resplendent with gold and marble, or a costly statue, or a magnificent painting, attest the devotion of the more wealthy.

Consider the meaning of these objects. Each is the witness of a vow. A solemn resolution has been formed in some thoughtful hour, and its memorial is there in the church. It gives an objective reality to that inward purpose. There is the record, the witness, and monument of it. Every time the giver enters the church his eye is attracted to it, and the saint to whom the votive offering is given is himself made, as it were, a party to this solemn transaction of the soul. It is the language of a symbol; it is a record by a fact; it is the will expressed by a deed.

It is easy to curl the lip of scorn, and to pro

nounce all these votive offerings the fruit of superstition; but a thoughtful man will be more disposed to see in each one of them the hint of some burning and bleeding heart in a solemn hour it has met, and of some blessing, perchance, which a holy resolution has brought to the soul.

But we live in times very different from those old pagan, and from later semi-Christianized days. We have dispensed with the language of symbols. We do not need objects of sense to enable us to grasp ideas. We can seize hold of ideas directly, and keep hold of them, and make them present and living realities, without the intervention of visible representations. So at least we say.

We enter the place of worship. There is no image there of the God we adore. We can see Him in our minds. We think it would be degrading and sensualizing the image of Him stamped on our souls were we to give it any outward representation. So we say. But who does not see that if to us the church be but an empty space, a hollow shrine, if there be to us no God there, no majestic and Divine presence before which the soul bows, then we are not so true and devout worshippers as those who knelt sincerely before the idol which their hands had carved.

No smoke of incense ascends to the arches of this church. We do not need the sight of it. We can grasp the idea of prayer without this symbol. We can believe that the emotions and longings of

the soul go up to God, if no ascending vision appeals to the eye. So we say. But who does not see that if our prayers are only words, words that bear up nothing, no faith, no gratitude, no aspiration, then we are not so true worshippers as those ignorant and simple men whose souls were lifted up on the curling clouds of incense.

So likewise we have no votive offerings. We do not need any such outward symbols and memorials. With us a vow can be wholly mental. We can

call God to witness our heart and our will without any visible sign of these inward acts. So we say. But who does not see that if there be no holy resolution at all, if we pass solemn events and serious crises without any settled purpose, without any sacred vow, then we are not so true to our souls as were those simple-minded worshippers who hung up a sprig of evergreen, or lighted a bit of candle, as an expression and memorial of their will.

"I will pay my vows unto the Lord," said the Psalmist in the words of my text. The explanation I have given of these words has been to little purpose if we do not see that the main thing is to have a holy resolution, a fixed purpose of the will, a sacred, solemn vow. The form it takes is of little consequence, whether attested by an outward symbol, or known only in the deep places of the heart. But all through the Bible, all through pagan and Christian experience, all through the