re contending. In the moon followed by a drifting cloud, they
saw a goddess chased by a wolf. The strife goes on waxing, and
must sooner or later reach a climax. Each side enlists its allies,
until all are ranged in opposition, from Jormungandur, the serpent
of the deep, to Heindall, the warder of the rainbow, gods and
brave men there, demons, traitors, and cowards here. Then sounds
the horn of battle, and the last day dawns in fire and splendor
from the sky, in fog and venom from the abyss. Flame devours the
earth. For the most part, the combatants mutually slay each other.
Only Gimli, the high, safe heaven of All Father, remains as a
refuge for the survivors and the beginning of a new and fairer
world.

The natural history of this mythological mess is clear enough. It
arises from the poetic embodiment and personification of
phenomena, the grouping together of all evil and of all good, then
imaginatively universalizing the conflict, and carrying it out in
idea to its inevitable ultimatum. The process of thought was
obviously natural in its ground, but fictitious in its result. Yet
in a period when no sharp distinction was drawn between fancy and
fact, song and science, but an indiscriminate faith was often
yielded to both, even such a picturesque medley as this might be
held as religious truth.

The Zarathustrian or Persian scheme of a general judgment of men
and of the world in some respects resembles the systems already
set forth, in other respects more closely approaches that
Christian doctrine partially borrowed from it, and which is
hereafter to be noticed. Ahura Mazda, the God of light and truth,
creates the world full of all sorts of blessings. His adversary,
Angra Mainyus, the author of darkness and falsehood, seeks to
counteract and destroy the works of Ahura Mazda by means of all
sorts of correspondent evils and woes. When Ahura Mazda creates
the race of men happy and immortal, Angra Mainyus, the old serpent,
full of corruption and destruction, steals in, seduces them from
their allegiance, and brings misery and death on them, and then
leads their souls to his dark abode. The whole creation is
supposed to be crowded with good spirits, the angels of Ahura
Mazda,

seeking to carry out his beneficent designs; and also with evil
spirits, the ministers of Angra Mainyus, plotting to make men
wicked, and to pervert and poison every blessing with an answering
curse. Light is the symbol of God, darkness the symb