customs maintains that since Christianity cannot prevent superstition it is wise in directing it,—sending it thus into a right and beneficial channel. This is surely debatable ground. Superstition is by no means the appanage of ignorance only, and we must be grateful when we find it inoffensive and poetical.
In Paris to-day, you will meet educated Frenchwomen who are convinced that St. Anthony of Padua went to heaven and was canonised in the exclusive interest of their lost property. A friend of mine, witty, cultivated, a wide reader and traveller, accompanying me on a walk, dropped one of her gloves just outside the avenue door. She perceived her loss when we had gone a few paces ahead. "Oh, dear good St. Anthony," she exclaimed fervently, "make me find my glove, and I will light a candle in your honour. And now I am reminded, dear St. Anthony, that I owe you already a candle for my note-book which I lost and found last week; I will pay both on the recovery of my glove." I listened to the prayer in stupefaction. We turned on our heel, and there at the porte-cochère lay her glove. She pounced upon it, and cried, "Thanks, thanks, good St. Anthony, you will have your two candles this afternoon." Now, this was not a peasant, a servant, an ignorant little bourgeoise. She was a woman of liberal education, a frequenter of the noble Faubourg,
