Of the character of this race I will not here speak at any length:
only note of it this essential point, that their religion was at
once more practical and more imaginative than that of the Norwegian
peninsula; the Norse religion being the conception rather of natural
than moral powers, but the Saxon, primarily of moral, as the lords
of natural--their central divine image, Irminsul,[10] holding the
standard of peace in her right hand, a balance in her left. Such a
religion may degenerate into mere slaughter and rapine; but it has the
making in it of the noblest men.

[Footnote 10: Properly plural 'Images'--Irminsul and Irminsula.]

More practical at all events, whether for good or evil, in this trust
in a future reward for courage and purity, than the mere Scandinavian
awe of existing Earth and Cloud, the Saxon religion was also more
imaginative, in its nearer conception of human feeling in divine
creatures. And when this wide hope and high reverence had distinct
objects of worship and prayer, offered to them by Christianity, the
Saxons easily became pure, passionate, and thoughtful Christians;
while the Normans, to the last, had the greatest difficulty in
apprehending the Christian teaching of the Franks, and still deny the
power of Christianity, even when they have become inveterate in its
form.

Quite the deepest-thoughted creatures of the then animate world, it
seems to me, these Saxon ploughmen of the sand or the sea, with their
worshipped deity of Beauty and Justice, a red rose on her banner, for
best of gifts, and in her right hand, instead of a sword, a balance,
for due doom, without wrath,--of retribution in her left. Far