ly
inflicted. Among them may be gathered a harvest of tales of divine
interference,--from the bee stinging the tip of the swearer's tongue to
the sudden death of false witnesses. Among them do superstitions about
times and seasons flourish, even to the forgetfulness that the Sabbath
is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Some ascetics have faith
in the lot,--like the Moravians in ordering marriage, or Wesley in
opening his Bible to light upon texts. Others believe in warnings of
evil; and most dread the commission of ritual fully as much as of moral
sins. To play even a hymn tune on the piano on Sundays is an offence in
the Highlands of Scotland; and to miss prayers is a matter of penance in
a convent. The superstitions of the ascetic are scarcely fewer or more
moderate than those of the licentious form of religion; the chief
difference between the two lies in the spirit from which they emanate.
The superstitions of the ascetic arise from the spirit of fear; those of
the heathen arise perhaps equally from the spirit of love and the spirit
of fear.

It seems as if the portents which present themselves to ascetic
minds must necessarily be of evil, since the only good which their
imaginations admit is supposed to be secured by grace, and by acts of
service or self-denial. To the Fakir, to the Shaker, to the nun, no
good remains over and above what has been long claimed, while
punishment may follow any breach of observance. On the other hand,
before one who makes himself gods of the movements of inanimate nature
and human passions, the two worlds of evil and good lie open, and he
is perpetually on the watch for messengers from both. The poor pagan
looks for tokens of his gods being pleased or angry; of their
intentions of giving him a good or a bad harvest; or of their sending
him a rich present or afflicting him with a bereavement. Whatever he
wants to know, he seeks for in portents;--whether he shall live
again,--whether his departed friends think of him,--whether his child
shall be fortunate or wretched,--whether his enemy or he shall
prevail. It is open to the traveller's observation whether these
superstitions are of a generous or selfish kind,--whether they elevate
the mind with hope, or depress it with fear,--whether they nourish the
faith of the spirit, or extort merely the service of the lip and hand.

The Swiss herdsmen believe that the three deliverers (the founders of
the Helvetic Confederacy) sleep cal