Instead of the profane rites by which it has been desecrated, I have supposed it observed in Christian homes, by fire-side tales and recollections of the departed, and conversations about the state of Intermediate Repose. Such would be a less unfitting way of preparing for a Festival, in which the Church commemorates her Saints and Martyrs, and all the dead in Christ, as part of her Holy Communion, expecting with her the resurrection of the body, and the final award of the life everlasting.
This Festival is the counterpart of Easter—telling of Death, as Easter does of Resurrection; and as God has given to the latter, the reviving blossom and the sweet Spring-time; so He has set the former in the Autumn, and strewed the sere leaves in our path to Church, as its becoming symbol. And thus the true Catholic always finds himself living in harmony with nature; for the Author of Nature is the Author of his Holy Religion. He has a joy which the world knows not, in beholding all the works of God. They have a place in that system of the universe, of which the Catholic Church is a part; and Niagara, and Mont Blanc, possess for him a ritual character, as really as the Te Deum, in which he sings, “All the earth doth worship thee the Father Everlasting.”
The warlocks are at their play.
Strophe vii.
Such is one of the familiar superstitions concerning Halloween.
There is a world, &c.
Strophe ix.
See Ps. 78; 49. Zech. 13; 2. Eph. 6; 12. 1. Tim. 4; 1. And for Guardian Angels see S. Matt. 18; 10, and the service for Michaelmas, in the Prayerbook.