a chance such as a Heaven-to-be-worked-for faith could not have offered him. He might now work just as well as any worker for promised pay, in grateful love for him who had already given the reward. This labor now became his debt to Christ, a Christian service like that of Companionship and so regarded by the earliest Christianized Companions.

Here, then, Christianity had reached its highest individual altitude. The practice of it was of course imperfect; but its soul and essence was the purest and the strongest possible, and, once caught up with by its practical reason, would have urged the highest general aims into accomplishment.

Here, however, at this height, it did not stay and draw the nations up to it, but itself got gradually dragged down to the vulgar level and hidden under the devotions of the crowd. Hereafter, when it does in a rare instance reappear in earlier loftiness, it surprises the historian and calls forth his special mention.

And the reason and the nature of this downfall were as follows:

Among the mass to whom Christianity made its appeal many were of course unfit for a pure form of it. The great majority of Englishmen had not the special preparation of Companionship, which was an aristocratic institution. Harddriven slaves, hard-struggling freemen, for how many generations, and with how much family affection all along the line? they had probably

had little enough training in the loving gratefulness which could have helped them without aid of social antetypes to feel the very self of Christianity. They might readily profess- the faith for sake of what it promised; but how speedily perform what it enjoined? And then, the gospel of Faith proving insufficient, the gospel of Works appears. It says to the inactive recitationists: "Don't fool yourselves with expectation of a Heaven so easily won. Believing is serving, as you may discover from text so-and-so, and had best observe for hope of Heaven or escape of Hell." A good and useful form of exhortation, doubtless, if used as a last resort; not at all good as a beginning. But the trouble was that this last stroke, being simpler and yet stronger than more spiritual appeals, came to be brought first into play. Priests were plentiful whose shrewdness overleaped their wisdom and whose doctrine of devotion dealt solely with devotion to oneself. And if these aimed chiefly at the increase of their church and candles, even those of broader aim embraced the same means of impressment into their scheme of a Christian social service. In Cynewulf, together with the words of pure religious fervor one finds others of smooth promise for those who gladsomely with gentle cheer have welcomed needy men," and of grim for those who "have forbidden the poor to enter 'neath their roof, and in their hard hearts withheld from them full everything." To these says Cynewulf, speaking for

66

Christ in words of Dantean power: "Why hast thou hanged me worse on thy hands' cross than when of old I hung?" and continues, threatening. Eventually the practice comes to supersede the spirit in importance.

"Well, and why not?" some pre-eminently practical person may reply. "The spirit is worth only what it can accomplish, and it here failed to get the homeless sheltered and the starving fed. It was high time an abler method had a trial, and a good thing they of that time could apply it. A great pity we can't now."

To which, however, I must answer: Much depends on our respective premises. If we make of man a social tool, which must at any cost be got into smooth, sharp, practical condition, then perhaps it is of little matter how we oil and grease or knock and file him. But if we take him for a flesh-clothed soul, here to be taught and trained up in the expectation or chance hope of some stupendous future "practice," then, immediately, it seems of rather more importance in what manner we approach this spirit and handle it. Considerably better it will seem to us, I say, that man should be a pure and faithful spirit, though a poor fool in performance, than that he be a selfish useful person such as practical society especially admires.

Well, at any rate, the practical of those days had their way as do the practical of these; for great is practicality. First they took away the

possibility of any wholly pure religious feeling by putting heavenly promise on a business basis, making of it something offered to be served for instead of something given, to be grateful for. And then they found, as teachers of the auctioneering class are always likely to find, that many chose to keep the cash and let the credit go. What was now to do? Why, those who won't be led may yet be driven they would now drive men to good deeds. Heaven failing, Hell came to the fore.

And there it stayed ten dismal centuries, and threw its mingled glare and gloom upon the spirit of Christianity. The long reign of religious terror now began in which none but the noblest could avoid base fear, and they not always. One reads with admiration of that old pagan king who, when some foolish missionary sought to clinch his conversion with the assurance that his dead and unconverted relatives had gone to Hell, replied that he too would go with them; and is then obliged to wonder if some of his bravery were not due to incredulity or else to weakness of imagination. But soon the credulous had their imaginations cared for by kind Mother Church, and none needed lack his full and vivid knowledge of one place especially prepared for him. And when Hell had become to many the natural heritage of humankind for their abominable sin of being born, who but a fool would not buy off the wrath to come with any possible expenditure of piety? And piety thus gets its general character of fear

wrung tribute to the terrible Jehovah of ferociously revengeful righteousness.

“But we have heard of much pure piety among the medieval sainthood." Doubtless; and perhaps in that respect Hell could perform the effect of Heaven. Being given Heaven would perhaps arouse in any proud race no sincerer gratitude than being saved from Hell in one persuaded of its utter loathsomeness. But the former had been a frank, joyous love outflowing into manful service: it regarded Christ as a leader, a doer, of the kind that it had always been accustomed to. The latter was a love which, looking at Christ chiefly as a sufferer, flowed forth in fellow suffering, and so became a thing of tears and agonies to no good end.

And now Companionship, thus disappointed of its Christian possibilities, can place hope only in a secular career. In which career we shall a short while follow it.

9. PETRIFACTION

Some time ago we saw how this whole business of Companionship came into being by the landless warrior's becoming thrall to some rich, famous chief. We may imagine that in such a situation the retainer naturally sought the service closest to his lord,- this from motives both of admiration. and of desire to be well in at the distributing of gifts. Thus the offices most coveted are, in Saxon