m of the Divine will in its conflict
with the opposing forces of nature. The gods of the Scandinavians were
always at war. It was a system of dualism, in which sunshine, summer, and
growth were waging perpetual battle with storm, snow, winter, ocean, and
terrestrial fire. As the gods, so the people. War was their business,
courage their duty, fortitude their virtue. The conflict of life with
death, of freedom with fate, of choice with necessity, of good with evil,
made up their history and destiny.

This conflict in the natural world was especially apparent in the
struggle, annually renewed, between summer and winter. Therefore the light
and heat gods were their friends, those of darkness and cold their
enemies. For the same reason that the burning heat of summer, Typhon, was
the Satan of Egypt; so in the North the Jotuns, ice-giants, were the
Scandinavian devils.

There are some virtues which are naturally associated together, such as
the love of truth, the sense of justice, courage, and personal
independence. There is an opposite class of virtues in like manner
naturally grouped together,--sympathy, mutual helpfulness, and a tendency
to social organization. The serious antagonism in the moral world is that
of truth and love. Most cases of conscience which present a real
difficulty resolve themselves into a conflict of truth and love. It is
hard to be true without hurting the feelings of others; it is hard to
sympathize with others and not yield a little of our inward truth. The
same antagonism is found in the religions of the world. The religions in
which truth, justice, freedom, are developed tend to isolation, coldness,
and hardness. On the other hand, the religions of brotherhood and human
sympathy tend to weakness, luxury, and slavery.

The religion of the German races, which was the natural growth of their
organization and moral character, belonged to the first class. It was a
religion in which truth, justice, self-respect, courage, freedom, were the
essential elements. The gods were human, as in the Hellenic system, with
moral attributes. They were finite beings and limited in their powers.
They carried on a warfare with hostile and destructive agents, in which at
last they were to be vanquished and destroyed, though a restoration of the
world and the gods would follow that destruction.

Such was the idea in all the faith of the Teutonic race. The chief virtue
of man was courage, his unpardonable sin was cowa