Other offerings again may be dedicated with either motive. Candles and incense are equally suited to win a favour or to repay one. But whether the motive be propitiation or gratitude, the whole system is a legacy of the pagan world and permeated with the spirit of paganism. Everywhere the Christian disguise of the old religion is easily penetrable; the Church for instance has forbidden the use of graven images, and only in one or two places do statues or even reliefs survive: but the painted _icons_ which are provided in their stead satisfy equally well the common-folk’s instinct for idolatry.
Vows conditional upon the answering of some prayer usually conform outwardly at least to Christian requirements. Scores of the small chapels with which the whole country is dotted have been built in payment of such a vow; and often a boy may be seen dressed in a miniature priest’s costume, because in some illness his mother devoted him to the service of God or of some saint for a number of years if only he should recover. But the idea of bargaining by vows is more pagan than Christian, and sometimes indeed an even clearer echo of ancient thought is heard, as when a girl vows to the Virgin a silver girdle if she will lay her in her lover’s arms[105].
Miracles again are expected of the higher powers in return for man’s services to them; for as the proverb runs, ἅγιος ποῦ δὲν θαυματουργεῖ, δὲν δοξάζεται, ‘it is a sorry saint who works no wonders.’ And wonders are worked as the people expect--some in appearance, some in fact.
A sham miracle is annually worked by the priests of a church near Volo in Thessaly. Within the walls, still easily traced, of the old town of Demetrias on a spur of Mount Pelion stands an unfinished church dedicated to the Virgin. Here on the Friday after Easter there is a concourse from all Thessaly to see the miracle. At the east end of the church, on the outside, a square tank has been sunk ten or twelve feet below the level of the church floor, exposing, on the side formed by the church wall, ancient foundations--perhaps of some temple where the same miracle was worked two thousand years ago. The miracle consists in the filling of this tank with water; but seeing that under the floor of the church itself there are cisterns to which a shaft in each aisle descends, and that the tank outside, sunk, as has been said, to a lower level, undisguisedly derives its water from a hole in the foundations of the church, there is less of the marvellous in the fact that the priests by opening some sluice fill the tank than in the simple faith with which the throng from all parts presses to obtain a cupful of the miraculously fertilizing but withal muddy liquid. The women drink it, the men carry it home to sprinkle a few drops on cornfield or vineyard.