Without ever taking them back,
My shoulders in thy arms,
And my face under thy green sward.
The conception which is here revealed is totally unlike popular apocryphal Christian tales like the Visions of St. Peter, Paul, and the Lady Mary, all well known in Rumanian literature. Nor are there traces of the other set of ideas, originating probably in Egypt, according to which the soul has to pass through many toll-houses where angels and devils are waiting for it, and through which it can only pass with extreme difficulty, if and when the good deeds outweigh the evil deeds. The poem of the “Pilgrimage of the Soul” has almost an heathen aspect. Noteworthy are the huge trees, at the shore of the boundless sea, which must bend across it so as to form a bridge for the soul to pass, and the three animals living in it which threaten the soul with destruction. It reminds one strongly of the Northern Ygdrasil, and almost the same beasts which inhabit it. This is not the place to discuss at any length this tree upon which the world rests, which no doubt goes back to, or is somehow connected with, the tree of life in Paradise and the legends which have clustered round that tree. This conception of the “Pilgrimage of the Soul,” with its allegorical and mystical meaning, is certainly not a product of the Orthodox Church. It reminds one forcibly of the fantastical and poetical conceptions of the heterodox sects.
CXIX.
THE REWARD OF THE GOOD MAN.
A Christmas Carol of the Lord’s Justice.
Lord, O Lord,
In this house,