Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/445

 the permission to mediate for the world, according to the church tradition: anathema.”

That is, obviously, a sufficient proof.

255. (cc) The worship of holy relics and of other remainders of those who have pleased God. Besides, it is necessary also to glorify the relics and other remainders of the saints. That is proved:

“(a) Because when a dead man barely touched the body of Prophet Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet (2 Kings xiii. 21); (c) because the mantle of Elijah, which was left by him to Elisha, with its touch opened the waters of the Jordan for the passage of the latter prophet (2 Kings ii. 14); that even the handkerchiefs and aprons of St. Paul, which in his absence were put on those who suffered from diseases or were possessed by devils, cured the diseases and drove out the devils (Acts xix. 12). (2) In the history of the church we find an endless number of similar miracles, which the Lord has performed through the relics and other remainders of the saints for all those who had recourse to them with faith.

“(3) The most startling miracle, with which the Lord has glorified the bodies of many saints, is their incorruptibility. This incorruptibility of the holy relics, this exemption of theirs through the miraculous divine action from the universal law of corruption, serving, as it were, as a living lesson of their future resurrection and as strong incitement to us to worship the very bodies of the saints who are glorified by God and to emulate their faith, is not subject to the slightest doubt. In Kíev and Nóvgorod, in Moscow and Vológda, and in many other places of our divinely guarded country openly rest many incorruptible relics of saints, and by the incessant miracles, which are wrought on those who have recourse to them in faith, they loudly testify to the truth of their incorruptibility.” (pp. 563-567.)

All of us know about the Duke Decroix, of hundreds