It may easily be imagined, that, under these circumstances, the profession of painter is often lucrative, and that artists do not fail to employ the most unjustifiable means to advance their interests. A friend of mine once spent a night at Magnesia, in his way from Smyrna to Constantinople. His host was a picture-seller. In the course of the evening, a countryman came to purchase a picture of St. Nicholas. "What kind of a picture do you want?" inquired the painter. "Is it a miracle-working St. Nicholas, or a plain St. Nicholas?" The countryman begged to see both. They were accordingly produced; and, in answer to inquiries, the painter informed his customer, that the miracle-working picture had leaped the night preceding from the station which it occupied, had marched along the floor to a considerable distance, and had then resumed its original position. The price of this picture was, in consequence, nearly double that of the plain St. Nicholas. The purchaser seemed anxious to obtain what appeared so valuable a treasure; but his poverty only permitted him to buy the plain St. Nicholas.

I have never found any difficulty in convincing Greeks of the impropriety of worshipping saints and pictures, when I had previously adopted a

conciliatory line of conduct. Those who attempt to defend the practice, bring forward arguments similar to those of the Roman Catholics. It is not the highest kind of worship, λarpɛła, which they give to saints: this they reserve for God alone. To the saints they give πроσжúvпois; and to the Virgin Mary, úπeрdovλεĩα. The Septuagint Version, which is in common use amongst them, completely silences them. The very word πроσxυVÕ is employed, as well as λarpeú∞, in the xxth Chapter of Exodus, with the most absolute prohibition connected with it. I have often found the Chapter of Epiphanius against the Collyridians (adv. Hæres. lib. iii. 59 & 79) strike them with astonishment. Here one of their own Greek Saints and Fathers, no less than six times in a single chapter, declares it illegal to give even πроσжúvησis to the Virgin Mary; and stigmatizes the practice as idolatrous and diabolical. But no passage in the Fathers is calculated to produce so strong an impression on the Greeks as the Homily of St. Chrysostom on Matth. xii. 46 -49. Here the Divine Chrysostom, as he is uniformly styled, charges the Virgin with ambition and folly. He declares that it is possible for men, as well as women, to have much higher honour conferred upon them than was bestowed

on Mary; that it is the performance of the will of God which constitutes the mother, more than the pangs of parturition; and, in consequence, he exhorts his hearers to pursue with all diligence the path which will conduct them to this great object. On shewing this passage to a Greek of Smyrna, I was not surprised to hear him say: "I should have considered this language blasphemy, had not St. Chrysostom employed it." Many adduce the Legend of Abgarus, to which reference has just been made; and others appeal very confidently to the pictures of the Virgin, which they consider to have been drawn by St. Luke.* Conversing once with a native of Ithaca, on the latter subject, he positively asserted, that the fact was mentioned by St. Luke himself, in his Gospel. Of course, I challenged him to produce the passage. He returned home, in order to search for it; and appeared much abashed, when I next met him, at having failed in his inquiry.

In nothing, perhaps, are the Greeks so rigorous, as in their obedience to the prescribed Fasts of their Church. It is not only persons of life comparatively moral who are observant of these institutions, but even men of a character the very

* See the Chapter on Public Preaching, for an account of these pictures.

opposite.

During the trial of some pirates at Malta, it appeared that the individuals, who were convicted, had, during a long course of piracy, observed most conscientiously the fasts of their Church. There was little doubt that they had even committed murder; and yet they had been guilty of no infraction of the laws of fasting. Some of the Samiot free-booters, in the course of a plundering expedition to the neighbourhood of Smyrna, entered a Greek house, and demanded food. Animal food was presented to them. They shrunk from it with abhorrence: "How could they be guilty of such a sin?" I have made voyages with Greeks of the most vicious character. They were men who seemed to indulge, without restraint, in profaneness, falsehood, and licentiousness; and yet these very persons, when they observed me partaking of animal food on their fast-days, have turned from me, as a person guilty of a sin to which they were happily strangers. I have been assured, on authority which I could not question, that infants not unfrequently perish, because their mothers refuse to take the nourishment which is requisite for a due supply of milk.

The union which is observable between a rigid attention to certain ordinances of religion, and an open violation of its most important precepts,

F

is easily explained. The human mind is seldom so entirely insensible to the superior interests of eternity, as to neglect every species of preparation for them. It looks for something, either active or passive, either great or small, which may in some degree still the voice of conscience, and impart hope on approaching the grave. Amongst the Greeks, the injunctions of abstinence afford a most convenient resource of this description. Whatever crime may have been committed, the reflection, that strict obedience has been rendered to the self-denying command of abstinence, presents a soporific to the conscience, otherwise ready to be startled by an alarm of guilt; and, practically, dependence is placed on it, as on an atonement sufficient to expiate the offence.

The same principle operates, perhaps, universally. It is discovered very frequently in our own land, though its effects are somewhat different. Conversing, on such subjects as these, with a British naval officer-" What difference is there," he inquired, "between these Greeks, and so many of our countrymen, who are most constant in their habitual attendance at their parish church, whilst you almost fail to discover any other attention to religion in their character?" The remark was founded in truth. How many, unhappily,