ls one of the greater festivals of the western Church,
All Saints'--or, to give it its old English name, All Hallows'--and on
the morrow is the solemn commemoration of the departed--All Souls'. In
these two anniversaries the Church has |190| preserved at or near the
original date one part of the old beginning-of-winter festival--the part
concerned with the cult of the dead. Some of the practices belonging to
this side of the feast have been transferred to the season of Christmas
and the Twelve Days, but these have often lost their original meaning,
and it is to All Souls' Day that we must look for the most conscious
survivals of that care for the departed which is so marked a feature of
primitive religion. Early November, when the leaves are falling, and all
around speaks of mortality, is a fitting time for the commemoration of
the dead.

The first clear testimony to All Souls' Day is found at the end of the
tenth century, and in France. All Saints' Day, however, was certainly
observed in England, France, and Germany in the eighth century,{5} and
probably represents an attempt on the part of the Church to turn the
minds of the faithful away from the pagan belief in and tendance of
"ghosts" to the contemplation of the saints in the glory of Paradise. It
would seem that this attempt failed, that the people needed a way of
actually doing something for their own dead, and that All Souls' Day with
its solemn Mass and prayers for the departed was intended to supply this
need and replace the traditional practices.{6} Here again the attempt
was only partly successful, for side by side with the Church's rites
there survived a number of usages related not to any Christian doctrine
of the after-life, but to the pagan idea, widespread among many peoples,
that on one day or night of the year the souls of the dead return to
their old homes and must be entertained.

All Souls' Day then appeals to instincts older than Christianity. How
strong is the hold of ancient custom even upon the sceptical and
irreligious is shown very strikingly in Roman Catholic countries: even
those who never go to church visit the graves of their relations on All
Souls' Eve to deck them with flowers.

The special liturgical features of the Church's celebration are the
Vespers, Matins, and Lauds of the Dead on the evening of November 1, and
the solemn Requiem Mass on November 2, with the majestic "Dies irae" and
the oft-recurrent versicle, "Requiem aeternam