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
other than the Wends, though stubborn enough, they too, in battle
rank,--seven times rising from defeat against Charlemagne, and
unsubdued but by death--yet, by no means in that John Bull's manner
of yours, 'averse to be interfered with,' in their opinions, or their
religion. Eagerly docile on the contrary--joyfully reverent--instantly
and gratefully acceptant of whatever better insight or oversight a
stranger could bring them, of the things of God or man.

And let me here ask you especially to take account of that origin of
the true bearing of the Flag of England, the Red Rose. Her own
madness defiled afterwards alike the white and red, into images of the
paleness, or the crimson, of death; but the Saxon Rose was the symbol
of heavenly beauty and peace.

I told you in my first lecture that one swift requirement in our
school would be to produce a beautiful map of England, including
old Northumberland, giving the whole country, in its real geography,
between the Frith of Forth and Straits of Dover, and with only
six sites of habitation given, besides those of Edinburgh and
London,--namely, those of Canterbury and Winchester, York and
Lancaster, Holy Island and Melrose; the latter instead of Iona,
because, as we have seen, the influence of St. Columba expires
with the advance of Christianity, while that of Cuthbert of
Melrose connects itself with the most sacred feelings of the entire
Northumbrian kingdom, and Scottish border, down to the days of
Scott--wreathing also int