Of all the Roman festivals this is the only one which can be said with any truth to be still surviving. When the Italian priest leads his flock round the fields with the ritual of the Litania major in Rogation week he is doing very much what the Fratres Arvales did in the infancy of Rome, and with the same object. In other countries, England among them, the same custom was taken up by the Church, which rightly appreciated its utility, both spiritual and material; the bounds of the parish were fixed in the memory of the young, and the wrath of God was averted by an act of duty from man, cattle, and crops. ‘It was a general custom formerly, and is still observed in some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Ascension-day; when the Minister, accompanied by his Churchwardens and Parishioners, was wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and properties of the parish[502].’ At Oxford, and it is to be hoped in some other places, this laudable custom still survives. But the modern clergy, from want of interest in ritual, except such as is carried on within their churches, or from some strong distrust of any merry-making not initiated by their own zeal, are apt to drop the ceremonies; and there is some danger that even in Oxford the processions and peeled wands may soon be things of the past. To all such ministers I would recommend the practice of the judicious Hooker, as described by his biographer, Isaak Walton: ‘He would by no means omit the customary time of procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of Love, and their Parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his Perambulation—and most did so; in which Perambulation he would usually express more pleasant Discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious Observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the Boys and young people; still inclining them, and all his present Parishioners, to meekness and mutual Kindnesses and Love.’ At Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, there was a survival of the ‘agri lustratio’ until recent years. On the beautiful rood-screen of the parish church there is a cross, which was carried in procession through the parish[503], freshly decorated with flowers, on May-day; it was then restored to its place on the screen, and remained there until the May-day of the next year. It may still be seen there, but it is no longer carried round, and its decoration seems to have been transferred from May-day to the harvest-festival[504]. Footnote 363: Sat. 1. 12. 16. Footnote 364: See above, Introduction, p. 11. Footnote 365: So Varro also (_L. L._ 6. 33). But Censorinus (_De die natali_, 20. 2) expressly ascribes to Varro the derivation from Maia; the great scholar apparently changed his view. Footnote 366: