the Mayflower Puritans followed in their footsteps. It is a dim old
story, laid away in Icelandic manuscripts, and confirmed by but few
relics on our soil; yet it is strong enough to give New England a link
to the Middle Ages of Europe, with their wildest romance and strangest
elements. It is pleasant to think that far back in the night there
walked for a short season on these shores great men of that hearty
Norse-Teuton race which in after times flowed through France into
England, and from England through the long course of ages hitherward.
Among the old Puritan names of New England there is more than one which
may be found in the roll of Battle Abbey, and through the Norse-Norman
spelling of which we trace the family origin of fierce sea-kings in
their lowland isles or rocky lairs on the Baltic.

But there are older links existing between America and Europe than this
of the Norseman. Of these the first is indeed buried in mystery--leading
us back into that sombre twilight of 'symbolism,' as the Germans
somewhat obscurely call the study of the early ages whose records are
lost, and which can only be traced by reflection in the resemblances
between mythologies which argue a common origin, and the monuments
remaining, which seem to establish it. Yes, America has this in common
with every country of Asia, Europe, and Africa: she has relics which
indicate that at one time she was inhabited by a race which had perhaps
the same faith, the same stupendous nature-worship, with that of the Old
World, and which was, to reason by analogy, _possibly_ identified by the
same language and customs. What _was_ this race, this religion, this
language? Who shall answer? Men like Faber, and Higgins, and Lajard,
with scores of others, have unweariedly gathered together all the points
of resemblance between the religions and mythologies of the Hindus and
Egyptians and Chinese, the Druids and the Phenicians, the Etruscans and
the Scandinavians, and old Sclavonic heathen, and found in and between