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Superstition is a name generally given to a few only of those beliefs for which it is imagined that there is no sufficient support, such as the belief in ghosts, witches, and, if we are Protestants, in miracles performed after a certain date.  Why these particular beliefs have been selected as solely deserving to be called superstitious it is not easy to discover.  If the name is to be extended to all beliefs which we have not attempted to verify, it must include the largest part of those we possess.  We vote at elections as we are told to vote by the newspaper which we happen to read, and our opinions upon a particular policy are based upon no surer foundation than those of the Papist on the authenticity of the lives of the Saints.

Superstition is a matter of relative evidence.  A thousand years ago it was not so easy as it is now to obtain rigid demonstration in any department except mathematics.  Much that was necessarily the basis of action was as incapable of proof as the story of St. George and the Dragon, and consequently it is hardly fair to say that the dark ages were more superstitious than our own.  Nor does every belief, even in supernatural objects, deserve the name of superstition.  Suppose that the light which struck down St. Paul on his journey to Damascus was due to his own imagination, the belief that it came from Jesus enthroned in the heavens was a sign of strength and not of weakness.  Beliefs of this kind, in so far as they exalt man, prove greatness and generosity, and may be truer than the scepticism which is formally justified in rejecting them.  If Christ never rose from the dead, the women who waited at the sepulchre were nearer to reality than the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection.

There is a half-belief, which we find in Virgil that is not superstition, nor inconstancy, nor cowardice.  A child-like faith in the old creed is no longer possible, but it is equally impossible to surrender it.  I refer now not to those who select from it what they think to be in accordance with their reason, and throw overboard the remainder with no remorse, but rather to those who cannot endure to touch with sacrilegious hands the ancient histories and doctrines which have been the depositaries of so much that is eternal, and who dread lest with the destruction of a story something precious should also be destroyed.  The so-called superstitious ages were not merely transitionary.  Our regret that they have departed is to be explained not by a mere idealisation of the past, but by a conviction that truths have been lost, or at least have been submerged.  Perhaps some day they may be recovered, and in some other form may again become our religion.

JUDAS ISCARIOT—­WHAT CAN BE SAID FOR HIM?