in the dark, and that their rude faith was the first in which that
veneration for woman arose, which the Western nations may well claim
as the brightest jewel in their crown of civilization; that while she
was a slave in the East, a toy to the Greeks, and a housewife to the
Romans, she was a helpmeet to the Teuton, and that those stern
warriors recognized something divine in her nature, and bowed before
her clearer insight into heavenly mysteries. The worship of the
Virgin Mary was gradually developed out of this conception of woman's
character, and would have been a thing absurd and impossible, had
Christianity clung for ever to Eastern soil. And now to proceed,
after thus turning aside to compare the mythology of the Greek with
the faith of the Norseman. The mistake is to favour one or the other
exclusively instead of respecting and admiring both; but it is a
mistake which those only can fall into, whose souls are narrow and
confined, who would say this thing and this person you shall love,
and none other; this form and feature you shall worship and adore,
and this alone; when in fact the whole promised land of thought and
life lies before us at our feet, our nature encourages us to go in
and possess it, and every step we make in this new world of knowledge
brings us to fresh prospects of beauty, and to new pastures of
delight.

Such were the gods, and such the heroes of the Norseman; who, like
his own gods, went smiling to death under the weight of an inevitable
destiny. But that fate never fell on their gods. Before this
subjective mythological dream of the Norsemen could be fulfilled, the
religious mist in which they walked was scattered by the sunbeams of
Christianity. A new state and condition of society arose, and the
creed which had satisfied a race of heathen warriors, who externally
were at war with all the world, became in time an object of horror