with the other, to see if there be a scale or gradation according to which we may place them as they are in themselves, and independently of any personal attraction one may have toward them.
I think it may be safely stated that devotions are the more approved of by the Church, and therefore the more solid, in proportion to their being more deeply founded in, or more intimately connected with, revealed and defined dogma, and therefore reaching back to the earliest ages. Keeping this before us as a standard, we may safely say that devotions to God, or to one of the three divine Persons, and to Our Lord, are of a higher order than devotion to any creature, angel, or saint; and that devotion to the Blessed Virgin is of a higher order than that to any of or to the whole court of heaven.
Confining ourselves to Our Lord, and keeping in mind that true devotion in its full and perfect meaning supposes love for and imitation of the person to whom we are devoted, we may securely say that the Passion and the Blessed Sacrament are the subjects best suited to create, increase inflame our hearts, first with love, and then with a real desire of imitation. Both are the clearest and strongest proofs of the love of His Sacred
