Note 47 — Chapter VI · THE FAILURE OF THEISTIC ARGUMENTS
Reading edition
When denouncing Mariolatry (in his sermon at the opening of the Church Congress, October, 1905), the Bishop of London said: “It is not revealed that the cry to any saint or to the Virgin Mary ever reaches them at all.” Apparently, therefore, the Bishop admits that appeals to the supernatural may be wasted, and this in spite of the suppliant being very much in earnest. Yet who would be prepared to say that the Roman Catholic who prays to the Virgin Mary and to innumerable saints does not derive quite as much benefit from the process as the Protestant who directs his worship solely to the Holy Trinity, or the Shintoist who invokes the benign spirits of his ancestors?47 The effect of the suggestion is the same in each case, and has all the appearance of an answer to prayer.