religion than confidence in our
own strength and good success." Evidently Christianity for a long time sat
very lightly on these nations. They were willing to be baptized and accept
some of the outward ceremonies and festivals of the Catholic Church, which
were considerately made to resemble their old ones.

Nevertheless Christianity met many of the wants of this noble race of men;
and, on the other hand, their instincts as a race were as well adapted to
promote an equal development of every side of Christian life. The Southern
races of Europe received Christianity as a religion of order; the Northern
races, as a religion of freedom. In the South of Europe the Catholic
Church, by its ingenious organization and its complex arrangements,
introduced into life discipline and culture. In the North of Europe
Protestant Christianity, by its appeals to the individual soul, awakens
conscience and stimulates to individual and national progress. The nations
of Southern Europe accepted Christianity mainly as a religion of sentiment
and feeling; the nations of Northern Europe, as a religion of truth and
principle. God adapted Christianity to the needs of these Northern races;
but he also adapted these races, with their original instincts and their
primitive religion, to the needs of Christianity. Without them, we do not
see how there could be such a thing in Europe to-day as Protestantism. It
was no accident which made the founder of the Reformation a Saxon monk,
and the cradle of the Reformation Germany. It was no accident which
brought the great Gustavus Adolphus from the northern peninsula, at the
head of his Swedish Protestants, to turn the tide of war in favor of
Protestantism and to die on the field of Lutzen, fighting for freedom of
spirit. It is no accident which makes the Scandinavian races to-day, in
Sweden and Norway, in Denmark and North Germany and Holland, in England
and the United States, almost the only Protestant nations of the world.
The old instincts still run in the blood, and cause these races to ask of
their religion, not so much the luxury of emotion or the satisfaction of
repose, in having all opinions settled for them and all actions
prescribed, as, much rather, light, freedom, and progress. To them
to-day, as to their ancestors,

"Is life a simple art
Of duties to be done,
A game where each man takes his part,
A race where all must run;
A battle whose great scheme and scope