divine being than simply his wrath or his power. Superstition, indeed,
or the sympathy with the invisible, is the great test of man's nature,
as an earthly combining with a celestial. In superstition lies the
possibility of religion. And though superstition is often injurious,
degrading, demoralizing, it is so, not as a form of corruption or
degradation, but as a form of non-development. The crab is harsh, and
for itself worthless. But it is the germinal form of innumerable finer
fruits: not apples only the most exquisite, and pears; the peach and
the nectarine are said to have radiated from this austere stock when
cultured, developed, and transferred to all varieties of climate.
Superstition will finally pass into pure forms of religion as man
advances. It would be matter of lamentation to hear that superstition
had at all decayed until man had made corresponding steps in the
purification and development of his intellect as applicable to
religious faith. Let us hope that this is not so. And, by way of
judging, let us throw a hasty eye over the modes of popular
superstition. If these manifest their vitality, it will prove that the
popular intellect does not go along with the bookish or the worldly
(philosophic we cannot call it) in pronouncing the miraculous extinct.
The popular feeling is all in all.

This function of miraculous power, which is most widely diffused
through Pagan and Christian ages alike, but which has the least root in
the solemnities of the imagination, we may call the _Ovidian_. By
way of distinction, it may be so called; and with some justice, since
Ovid in his _Metamorphoses_ gave the first elaborate record of
such a tendency in human superstition. It is a movement of superstition
under the domination of human affections; a mode of spiritual awe which
seeks to reconcile itself with human tenderness or admiration; and
which represents supernatural power as expressing itself by a sympathy