nished of my entrance into Italy by a
little chapel to the Madonna, built upon a rock by the
roadside, and from that time till I repassed this
chain of mountains I received almost hourly proof that
I was wandering amongst the descendants of that people
which is described by Cicero to have been the most
religious of mankind. Though the mixture of religion
with all the common events of life is anything but an
error, yet I could not avoid regretting that, like
their heathen ancestors, the modern Italians had
supplied the place of our great master mover by a
countless host of inferior agents."[460]

Mr. Blunt goes on to give interesting details of the close connection
between the modern religious festival, ceremony, or service, and those
of classical times, and the conclusion is obvious. In modern days Dr.
Mommsen has lent the sanction of his great authority to the
identification of the birthday of Christ with that of Mithra,[461]
and Mr. Leland has given such numerous identifications not only of the
cults of pagan and Christian Italy, but of the god-names of ancient
Rome with the saint-names or witch-names of modern times,[462] that it
seems impossible to deny a place for this evidence. "It was," says
Gibbon,

"the universal sentiment both of the Church and of
heretics that the daemons were the authors, the
patrons, and the objects of idolatry; those rebellious
spirits who had been degraded from the rank of angels
were still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment
the bodies and to seduce the minds of sinful men. It
was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that they
had distributed among themselves the most important
characters of Polytheism, one daemon assuming the name
of Jupiter, another of AEsculapius, a third of Venus,
and a fourth perhaps of Apollo."[463]

This, then, is recognition and adoption of pagan beliefs, not the
uprooting of them. If the Roman Jupiter was a Christian daemon, his
existence at all events was recognised. But even this negative way of
adopting the old beliefs gave way as the Church spread further. The
tribe of daemons soon included the popular fairy, elf, and goblin. And
then came the positive adoption of pagan customs. Gibbon describes how
the early Christians refused to decorate their doors with garlands and
lamps, and to take part in the ceremonial of l