Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/15

Rh above sixty, who lived and died in a parish where there had bin preaching almost all his time On his deathbed, being questioned by a minister touching his faith and hope in God, you would wonder to hear what answer he made: being demanded what he thought of God, he answers that he was a good old man; and what of Christ, that he was a towardly youth; and of his soule, that it was a great bone in his body; and what should become of his soule after he was dead, that if he had done well he should be put into a pleasant green meadow."

Of the four articles of this singular creed, the first two depict an absence of knowledge about the central features of Christian belief, the latter two denote the existence of knowledge about some belief not known to English scholars of that time. If it had so happened that the Reverend Mr. Pemble had thought fit to tell his audience only of the two first articles of this creed, it would have been difficult to resist the suggestion that they presented us merely with an example of stupid, or, perhaps, impudent, blasphemy caused by the events of the day. But the negative nature of the first two items of the creed is counterbalanced by the positive nature of the second two items; and thus this example shows us the importance of considering evidence as to all phases of non-belief in Christianity.

But I pass on to the two items of positive belief. The soul resident in the body in the shape of a bone is no part of the primitive Aryan belief, but equates rather with the savage idea which identifies the soul with some material part of the body, such as the eyes, the heart, or the liver; and it is interesting to note in this connection that the backbone is considered by some savage races, e.g., the New Zealanders, as especially sacred, because the soul or spiritual essence of man resided in the spinal marrow (Shortland, 107). And there is a well-known incident in folk-tales which seems to owe its origin to this group of ideas. This is where the hero, having been killed, one of