to venerate the memory of the holy patriarchs and prophets: "Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation" (Ecclus. xliv. 1). "And their names continue for ever, the glory of the holy men remaining unto their children" (Ecclus. xlvi. 15).
Reason and Holy Scripture, then, are in favor of the veneration of the saints. We find it practised, therefore, also in the early Church. She was convinced from the very beginning of its propriety and utility. As early as the first century the memorial day of the martyrs' death was observed by the Christians. They assembled at the tombs of the sainted victims of pagan cruelty and celebrated their memory by offering up the Holy Sacrifice over their relics. We know this not only from the testimony of the earliest ecclesiastical writers, as Origen, Tertullian, and St. Cyprian, but also from the history of St. Ignatius the Martyr (d. 107), and of St. Polycarp of Smyrna (d. 166). Over one hundred panegyrics of various saints written by St. Augustine are still extant.
And why should it not be right and useful to invoke the intercession of the saints? Everybody deems it proper to ask a pious friend for his prayers. St. Paul the Apostle recommended himself to the prayers of the faithful (Rom. xv. 30), and God Himself commanded the
