FOLK-PRAYERS
FOLK-PRAYERS
It is a singular fact, but fact it is, that very little of what may be termed peculiarly Romish superstition lingers among the peasantry of England; this goes far to show how very little hold such superstition had on their minds or hearts. It may be almost said that there is more of pre-Christian paganism, of usages condemned by the Catholic Church surviving, than of any practices recommended by her.
I do know, indeed, of one instance of a Cornish Methodist, who, when unable to attend his distant chapel, resorted to a rude granite cross of Brito-Roman date, and there said his prayers; but even in this case one cannot be certain that there did not linger on a reverence for the stone itself, which had been a prehistoric menhir before it was sanctified by being chipped into the sign of our salvation.
In Yorkshire, Milly (my Lady) boxes are carried about by children at Christmas: these are cradles containing dolls, one to represent the Virgin Mother, another the Divine Child; and the grocers send candles to their customers on Christmas Eve, for the lights to be burned at the Midnight Mass. But such usages are few, and have almost wholly lost their meaning, were never more than folk customs, and were never inculcated by the Church before the Reformation. The midsummer bonfires, the Yule log, the mumming at Christmas, the Maypole, the November “soul-cakes,” the “sin-eating” at funerals, and a thousand other customs are purely heathen survivals. The writer knew of a case in Yorkshire of a man who was buried in his coffin with a candle “to light him on his way to Jerusalem” and a penny “to pay the toll,” altogether a pagan reminiscence; but has never in all his experience come across any practice connected with the doctrine of purgatory, one insisted upon with immense emphasis before the Reformation, as the saying of masses for the dead brought in a large revenue for the clergy.