couraged among, the students. Non-Catholics do not view the Catholic devotions very favorably, but their antipathy springs, for the most part, from a misunderstanding of the true nature of these devotions. Protestants think that Catholics consider these practices as the essence of religion; further, they have the opinion that these devotions are merely mechanical recitations of certain set prayers. In this they are seriously mistaken.[1] To the Catholic the religious devotions are not the essence of religion, but they are practical manifestations of religion and, at the same time, valuable helps to obtain and strengthen what is essential in religion, namely, the perfect subjection of the intellect and will to the will of God. Nor are they merely mechanical recitations of prayers; they are, if performed according to the mind of the Church, powerful means of lifting up the understanding, the imagination, the feelings and the will to the contemplation and active love of God. They all contain most potent motives for the moral elevation and betterment of man. Let us take that devotion which Jesuit educators recommend so much to their pupils: the devotion to St. Aloysius, the "Lily of Gonzaga." In this devotion the picture of the highest Christian perfection
- ↑ Far worse misrepresentations of Catholic devotions are due to gross ignorance of Catholic teaching. Thus we find in so learned a work as Schmid's Geschichte der Erziehung (vol. III, part I, page 91) the assertion that "the Society of Jesus, according to the idea of its founder, sees the end and object of all religious exercises in the adoration of Mary." Every Catholic child of seven years could have told the Leipsic Professor who wrote this calumny, that Catholics do not adore, but venerate Mary and the Saints; nor do Catholics see in the veneration of Mary and the Saints the end and object of all religious exercises.
