*.

they burst into "unbroken weeping"; "their bosoms surge within, their thoughts are all a-glow." At the judgment "there shall be a glorious band of His own thanes." But those that, "working wickedness, knew not the thanks that were God's due for that He hung upon the holy tree all for the base misdeeds of humankind and sold his life there lovingly upon that day for mankind's sake "*- they shall fare otherwise. For "what hope hath he who wittingly refuses to keep in mind his master's mild love and the miseries that he endured for men because he would that we might have the home of bliss to all eternity? They did not know the thanks due to the Ruler for their heritage: therefore shall they now" *and so forth. Base thanklessness is the burthen of reproach, here as in the practice of Companionship, of which the whole religious scheme was a reworking.

None of this re-working need, however, perforce strike one as especially remarkable. What should, however, strike one as indeed remarkable about this outward transformation of meek followers into warlike thanes is its success in seizing on the inner and essential likeness of true Christianity and pure Companionship. We know, I trust, what was the spirit of pure Companionship: perhaps we are less sure and little wonder, seeing what has since been offered us as such,— about that of true Christianity. But both, these an* From The Christ of Cynewulf.

cient bards were able to discover, were essentially the same: the soul of each was its whole-hearted devotion whether to a human master or to a divine. And it seemed to them most natural not only to name the new after the old but to feel it too: the highest joys of Heaven are only heightened versions of those of the earthly Hall. In the Wanderer the exile, "stirring with his hands the rime-cold sea till sorrow and sleep together bind him, dreams that "he clasps and kisses his liege-lord and on his knees lays hand and head, as of old he used while his chief yet enjoyed the gift-seat "; and the Christ concludes, descriptive of the place prepared for the faithful:

66

There is the gracious presence of the Lord,
Brighter than the sun for all the blessed ones;
There is the love of the beloved; life without death's
end.

A gladsome host of men; youth without age;
The glory of the heavenly chivalry.

There that blissful band,

...

The fairest of all hosts, shall aye enjoy
Their Sovran's grace, and glory with their King."

And thus Companionship, in recognition of conspicuous accomplishment on many a mundane occasion, has got deservedly elevated to celestial rank and station.

Mark, furthermore, in most of this the gratifyingly large lack of theological and ecclesiastical interest. Some amount of it there must be, for

explanatory and spectacular purposes; but all such was kept in absolute subordination to the redirecting of the ancient loyalty. The Scripture story is repeated as material more for entertainment than for meritorious reaffirmation and reiterated recitation. Small merit, thought they, in repeating what their simple minds accepted without doubt: they wanted to do something, and, denied the opportunity of later times to spend their strength on inward wrestlings with recitative outlets, they poured it forth in the performance of their faith through its commands, explicit or implied.

But all this is getting away from my main business of showing how the spirit of Companionship was an anticipation of the spirit of Christianity, and in its social and religious phases the uttermost development in duty and religion which the human spirit could or can receive. It raised duty to a spiritual payment; religious bondage to free, grateful love. That in the latter case it did so on more or less false premises does not much matter: the feelings, not the facts of it, shall judge a faith. And it was of heart full strong; and would in due time have got greater wisdom.

But before that time could come, the feeling had itself become impaired or been perverted, and in most cases could at best do good things for bad reasons, which, from one point of view, was rather worse than doing bad for good. Of this also shall the eager reader soon be given chance to judge.

8. POLLUTION

The reader has had opportunity of noting those parts of Christianity which poets and practitioners of Companionship found most familiar and made paramount in precept and in practice. He will now please note the operation of those other parts of Christian teaching which soon came to overcast, to stain, and in the end almost entirely to corrupt the purity of these.

For this pure type of religion had always, it is quite superfluous to say, been forced to bear the company of impure, ranging the whole scale of bribes and browbeats between Heaven and Hell. The transplanted Scripture had itself abounded in appeals to the cupidity and cowardice of humankind, and doubtless often made its welcome by these means. "Believe, recite at any rate and Heaven is yours; refuse, and you will get Hell gratis." The depths of baseness, our free-thinking friends declare. A bad beginning, anyone would naturally think.

But the fact is, friends, that this beginning, or at least the better half of it, was, looked at from ethical standpoint, undoubtedly the ablest and the best then possible. We have in recent centuries heard much of Justification by Faith and Justification by Works, concerning which the chamber battles of theology are probably still raging. Concerning which, however, we shall now say nothing more than that, considered ethic

ally, this same former creed of Faith is of the two the only one to be considered. Climbing into Heaven, scrambling out of Hell, by whatsoever works and deeds - what goodness is in that? Merely the cheapest prudence possible to the believer; and to the beholder, far-sighted selfishness more painful than the reckless kind. Well! am I about to applaud recitative religion? Far from it; but about to mention that, whereas the creed of Works left little or no chance of goodness for the worker, that of Faith left all, and added the incitement to make use of it. "God so loved the world," says the text especially adapted to proselytizing purposes, "that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." To us of these days not a very convincing doctrine, whether we regard the love as so great that it tacks such conditions to its gifts, or as so wise that it frames such useful ones. But they in those days of preCopernican astronomy could find the doctrine quite believable. God of course had all of their good qualities; and was it not quite natural that Heaven's king should, just as Anglia's, want his offspring recognized, and very good indeed of him to pay so liberally for the recognition? They would take a riskless chance on such attractive terms; and thus, probably, the new faith found its earliest converts. But observe that, this bribetaking over and Heaven won by these recitative and genuflective tactics, the worshipper had now