tempests, and hailstorms, by one party believed
to be visitations of divine wrath, were by
another and larger party believed to be the work
of malignant demons; and this opinion was held
even by so subtle and remarkable a thinker as
Thomas Aquinas. It is to this belief, M. Maury
says, that is due the practice of ringing the
church bells during violent storms—that being
the readiest mode of exorcising the demons.
Formerly the storm was exorcised by the
presentation of the cross, and by sprinkling holy
water. As the worst storm comes to an end at
last, the exorcism was certain to be successful.

Curious it is to notice what multitudes of
Pagan superstitions passed into the ordinary
beliefs of the Christians. The neophytes were
unable to disengage their minds from all the
associations of childhood, from all the prejudices
in which they had been reared. Among these
were the belief in, and use of, amulets and
enchantments. Even Saint Augustin believed
that demons were to be influenced by certain
signs, certain stones, certain charms and
ceremonies; and if Saint Augustin could believe
this, we may imagine that less vigorous intellects
would be still more credulous. There was
universal belief in the evocation of departed
spirits, upon evidence as cogent as modern
Rapping Mediums consider sufficient in 1861,
and with considerably more excuse. In the
ninth century we find the Bishop of Aosta
excommunicating serpents, moles, mice, rats, and
other beasts, because into these bestial forms
the agents of Satan delighted to hide
themselves—somewhat stupidly, it would seem,
seeing how little fascination these beasts,
generally, have for mankind;—but the demons were
never held to be very wise. Saint Bernard,
from the same cause, excommunicated flies, and
all the flies in the district shrivelled up at once.
In the year 1200, Saint Walthen, of Scotland,
proclaimed that the devil assumed the forms of
a pig, a bull, a black dog, a wolf, and a rat. The
black dog and black cat were generally believed
to have some secret understanding with the
devil; and if owned by a wise man or a blear-
eyed old woman, the evidence was sufficient.

There is abundant evidence to prove that the
spirit of Polytheism and its sorceries survived
long after the official Polytheism was extinct.
Its temples were in ruins, or were converted
into churches; its idols were broken, or were
rebaptised as saints and angels. Many a temple
of Diana or of Venus is now crowded by
worshippers of the Madonna, in very much the
same spirit, and with not a little of the old
forms. The traveller in Italy is constantly being
surprised by some living tradition of Polytheism
thinly veiled. In every Neapolitan hut may be
seen the ancient Lares; only they assume the
form of the Virgin, before whose image a lamp
is kept for ever burning. Such images are
transmitted from generation to generation. They
are implored on every occasion, more even than
the Saviour. When the superstitious Neapolitan
meditates a crime, he covers these images
with a veil, to hide the crime from them.

Sometimes the change from Pagan to Christian
has been very slight indeed, as in the case
of Aïdoneus of Epirus, who has been altered
into Saint Donatus, and Dea Pelina, who has
become Saint Pelino, and Felicitas Publica, who
has become Santa Felicità. In festivals meant
to please the populace, we expect to find the
old traditions of worship, and to find the old
divinities under the masks of saints. The
festivals of Ceres and Vesta, for example, have
been slightly changed in the Neapolitan festival
of the Madonna. Murray describes it thus:
"Their persons are covered with every variety
of ornament; the heads of both men and
women are crowned with wreaths of flowers and
fruits; in their hands they carry garlands and
poles, like thyrsi, surmounted with branches of
fruit or flowers. On their return homewards,
their vehicles are decorated with branches of
trees, intermixed with pictures of the Madonna
purchased at her shrine, and their horses are
gay with ribbons of all hues, and frequently
with a plume of snowy feathers on their heads.
The whole scene as fully realises the idea of a
Bacchanalian procession as if we could now see
one emerging from the gates of old Pompeii."

M. Maury notices that the processions and
prayers of priests and augurs for the plantations,
vines, and public health, have all been
consecrated anew. The sign of the cross, the use of
holy water, and the Agnus Dei, have replaced
the old exorcisms, charms, and talismans. The
Hebrew names of God, or the names of the
angels, and of Abraham or Solomon, took the
place of the names of Pagan deities. If oracles
disappeared, the tombs of martyrs and confessors
were not silent, and were interrogated with
the same credulity as had formerly been shown
to the oracles. In vain the Church forbade
sorcery and witchcraft; it encouraged many
kindred superstitions, and did not destroy the
source of all superstition. Paternosters were
murmured over wounds, in the perfect belief
that paternosters were curative, and that wounds
did not follow any strictly inexorable course.
The relics of saints were (and still are) devoutly
believed to have a wonder-working power—the
same power as was formerly attributed to charms
and talismans. The evil spirits who caused the
drought, the sickness, or the wrecks, would
shrink away in terror at the sight of the relics.
And when the Church encouraged such beliefs as
this, how could it expect to warn men from
believing in chaplets which had the power of
arresting bleeding, or in any other superstitions?

Some of the details collected by M. Maury
are curious. Thus he notices that to this day
the practice of placing a fee for Charon (passage
money across the Styx) is not quite unknown.
In some districts the money is placed in the
mouth of the corpse. By the inhabitants of the
Jura it is placed under the head of the corpse,
attached to a little wooden cross. In the Morvan
it is placed in the hands of the defunct. The
statue of Cybele used annually to be plunged
into the sacred bath; she is still publicly dipped,
only Cybele has become a saint. In Perpignan