Once, and once only, I met him at confession, hoping, by unveiling my sufferings to a man of God, to receive comfort of a higher order than I might otherwise expect.

He has granted me absolution for the past, and I doubt not that in future the intercession of the blessed saints in heaven will avail with my offended Maker." "Florry, my own dear Florry! hear me, for none on earth love you as I do.

Do you not believe the Bible--God's written word?
Has he not said, 'there is _one mediator_ between God and man--the man Christ Jesus ?' Has not Christ made propitiation for our sin, and assured us there is but one way whereby we may be saved, repentance for our past sins and faith in the sufficiency of his atonement?
Do you doubt the efficacy of Christ's suffering and death?
Tell me, Florry, by what authority you invoke your saints?
Surely you do so in opposition to the express declaration of the Bible already quoted--'there is _one mediator_ between God and man.'" "The holy Fathers of our church have been in the habit of praying for the intercession of saints from the earliest periods, and none have questioned their fervent piety, or doubted the orthodoxy of their faith," replied Florence.
"In the first place," said Mary, "it would be ridiculous in the extreme to advocate all the opinions and tenets advanced by those same Fathers.

St.Augustine doubted the existence of the antipodes; Tertullian emphatically pronounced second marriages adultery; Origen denied the sin of David in causing the death of Uriah, and has often been accused of favoring Arianism, and the doctrine of transmigration of soul; while it is a well-known fact, that Jerome, to vindicate Peter from the charge of dissimulation, actually accused St.Paul of lying, and thereby favoring deceit.

In the second place, are you quite sure that they were in the habit of invoking saints ?" "Certainly, Mary; for it is undeniable that St.Augustine in his Meditations calls on the Blessed Virgin, and all the angels and apostles in heaven, to intercede with God in his behalf.