ooking at
the Universe, and adjusting oneself there, has an indestructible merit
for us. A rude childlike way of recognizing the divineness of Nature,
the divineness of Man; most rude, yet heartfelt, robust, giantlike;
betokening what a giant of a man this child would yet grow to!--It was
a truth, and is none. Is it not as the half-dumb stifled voice of the
long-buried generations of our own Fathers, calling out of the depths of
ages to us, in whose veins their blood still runs: "This then, this is
what we made of the world: this is all the image and notion we could
form to ourselves of this great mystery of a Life and Universe. Despise
it not. You are raised high above it, to large free scope of vision; but
you too are not yet at the top. No, your notion too, so much enlarged,
is but a partial, imperfect one; that matter is a thing no man will
ever, in time or out of time, comprehend; after thousands of years of
ever-new expansion, man will find himself but struggling to comprehend
again a part of it: the thing is larger shall man, not to be
comprehended by him; an Infinite thing!"

The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies, we
found to be recognition of the divineness of Nature; sincere communion
of man with the mysterious invisible Powers visibly seen at work in
the world round him. This, I should say, is more sincerely done in
the Scandinavian than in any Mythology I know. Sincerity is the great
characteristic of it. Superior sincerity (far superior) consoles us for
the total want of old Grecian grace. Sincerity, I think, is better than
grace. I feel that these old Northmen wore looking into Nature with open
eye and soul: most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet manlike; with
a great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a true, loving,
admiring, unfearing way. A right valiant, true old race of men. Such
recognition of Nature one finds to be the chief element of Paganism;
recognition of Man, and his Moral Duty, though this too is not wanting,
comes to be the chief element only in purer forms of religion. Here,
indeed, is a great distinction and epoch in Human Beliefs; a great
landmark in the religious development of Mankind. Man first puts himself
in relation with Nature and her Powers, wonders and worships over those;
not till a later epoch does he discern that all Power is Moral, that the
grand point is the distinction for him of Good and Evil, of _Thou shalt_
and _Thou shalt n