Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



of science, even in the very diluted form in 

 which they reach most of us. The state of 

 fear in which the lower classes here, though 

 they are by nature of a cheerful temperament, 

 pass their lives is inconceivable to the educated 

 Northerner, unless, indeed, he is unfortunate 

 enough to be afflicted with that gruesome form 

 of religion which Mr. Gosse has so graphically 

 described in " Father and Son." The common 

 people here are doubtless not so worried about 

 the horrors of eternal punishment as are the 

 more unhappy kinds of Protestants. Their 

 Church, with its practice of Confession and 

 Absolution, does much to deliver them from 

 that gloomy obsession. But it fails to dissemi- 

 nate the imaginary dangers which beset their 

 daily lives. For them 



<' Hell and its torments are not there but here." 



The unseen and the seen are equally fraught 

 with terror ; they dread alike the ruthless forces 

 of Nature and the malignity of man ; they live 

 in fear of the powers of darkness, of the 

 authorities, and of each other. 



Their attitude towards witchcraft and its 

 kindred superstitions is still quite mediaeval. 



126 



