Florry, you smile, yet I assure you I have seen this advanced as unanswerable.

In the book of Maccabees is a very remarkable passage authorizing prayers for the dead, and on this passage they build their theory and sanction their practise.

Yet you know full well it is one of the Apocryphal books rejected by the Jews, because not originally written in their language.

It was never quoted by our Saviour, nor even received as inspired by your own church till the Council of Trent, when it was admitted to substantiate the doctrine of purgatory, and sanction prayers for the dead.

I admit that on this point St.Augustine's practise was in favor of it; though it was only near the close of his long life that he speaks of the soul of his mother.