Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I

at charge us with this grovelling system of worship.... But if, firmly believing, as we do, in the omnipresence of God, we behold, by the aid of our imagination, in the form of an image any of his glorious manifestations, ought we to be charged with identifying them with the matter of the image, whilst during those moments of sincere and fervent devotion, we do not even think of matter? If at the sight of a portrait of a beloved and venerated friend no longer existing in this world, our heart is filled with sentiments of love and reverence; if we fancy him present in the picture, still looking upon us with his wonted tenderness and affection, and then indulge our feelings of love and gratitude, should we be charged with offering the grossest insult to him--that of fancying him to be no other than a piece of painted paper?... We really lament the ignorance or uncharitableness of those who confound our representative worship with the Phenician, Grecian, or Roman idolatry as represented by European writers, and