Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/140

124 who kindly keeps some of my books at the disposal of the members of the Society.

Civilisation is coming on, and the folklore stage is going with rapidity to its end. True faith destroys superstition, and the living God delivers the soul from its dreadful fears of the unseen. But when animism as a doctrine passes away, it remains in the mind of man under another form; it evolves into poetry. The faculty of the human mind to see in nature the counterpart of the spirit of man, to catch the analogy of both domains—did it not inspire the best writers, the greatest poets in their dramas? Let the awful superstition die out, but let the native keep his language, his nice old tales, and his bright imagination in the midst of the beautiful scenery of his country!

Swiss Missionary.