ifting the bride over
the threshold of the house.[464] Both these customs have survived in
popular folklore, in spite of the recorded action of the early
Church, and it would be curious to ascertain whether they have
survived by the help of the Church. We cannot answer that question of
historical evidence just now, but it is a question which, in its wider
aspect, as including many other items of folklore, ought to be
examined into. There is no doubt, however, that by analogy it can be
answered, because we have ample evidence, if the writings of reformers
may be taken as historical facts and not polemical imaginations, that
many very important customs, among the richest as well as the poorest
treasures of folklore, have been, so to speak, Christianised by the
Church, and that the Church has taken part in and adopted
non-Christian customs, the survivors of olden-time life in
Europe.[465]

Now it is clear from these considerations, and from the vast mass of
information which is gradually being accumulated on the subject, that
not only the arresting force of Christianity but also its toleration
has assisted in the preservation of pre-Christian belief and custom.
But the preservation has been in fragments only. The system which
supported the older faith and might, if it had been allowed a natural
growth, have produced a newer religion of its own, was completely
shattered. It left no preservative force except that of tradition,
the traditional instinct to do what has always been done, to believe
what has always been believed. Pre-Christian belief and custom has
thus become isolated beliefs and customs in survival. It has been
broken up into innumerable fragments of unequal character, and
containing unequal elements. It has been forced back into secret
action wherever Christianity was wholly antagonistic, and hence
primitive public worship has tended to become local worship, or
household worship, or even personal worship, while all such worship
which is not the authorised Church worship has tended to become
superstition. Where Christianity was not wholly antagonistic, it
absorbed rites, customs, and even beliefs, and these primitive
survivals have taken their place in the evolution of Christian
doctrine, and thus become lost to the students of Celtic and Teutonic
antiquities. But even so, there are discoverable points where the
dividing line between non-Christian and Christian belief has not been
obliterated by the process o