incomparably more valuable, but carefully
self-appropriated. Our _wakes_ also may have had an identity of origin
with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, whose
customs were all probably derived from a common source.

The fasting of the creditor on the debtor is still practised in India,
and will be noticed in connexion with the Brehon Laws. There is,
however, a class of customs which have obtained the generic term of
superstitions, which may not quite be omitted, and which are, for many
reasons, difficult to estimate rightly. In treating of this subject, we
encounter, _prima facie_, the difficulty of giving a definition of
superstition. The Irish are supposed to be pre-eminently a superstitious
people. Those who make this an accusation, understand by superstition
the belief in anything supernatural; and they consider as equally
superstitious, veneration of a relic, belief in a miracle, a story of a
banshee, or a legend of Finn Mac Cumhaill. Probably, if the Celts did
not venerate relics, and believe in the possibility of miracles, we
should hear far less of their superstitions. Superstition of the
grossest kind is prevalent among the lower orders in every part of
England, and yet the nation prides itself on its rejection of this
weakness. But according to another acceptation of the term, only such
heathen customs as refer to the worship of false gods, are
superstitions. These customs remain, unfortunately, in many countries,
but in some they have been Christianized. Those who use the term
superstition generically, still call the custom superstitious, from a
latent and, perhaps, in some cases, unconscious impression that there is
no supernatural. Such persons commence with denying all miraculous
interventions except those which are recorded in holy Scripture; and
unhappily, in some cases, end by denying the miracles of Scripture.

To salute a person who sneezed with some form of benediction, was a
pagan custom. It is said to have originated through an opinion of the
danger attending it; and the exclamation used was: "Jupiter help me!" In
Ireland, the pagan custom still remains, but it has been Christianized,
and "God bless you!" is substituted for the pagan form. Yet we have
known persons who considered the use of this aspiration superstitious,
and are pleased to assert that the Irish use the exclamation as a
protection against evil spirits, meaning thereby fairies. When a motive
is persistently at