ple old Germanic virtue have been mirrored to a more sophisticated and perhaps less "virtuous " age, nor the second, third, or maybe thirtieth attempt on part of various literary pulpiteers to take a teaching for their present from that past. But this will, to my knowledge, be the first time that the most important part of all that former mode of life has been presented with due emphasis upon its deep and permanent importance. Other writers have applauded the commonplaces of Germanic custom apparently without a second thought concerning the most instructive institution of Germanic life and with next to none for the spirit which sprang therefrom and gained in time the power to re-shape all practice after its own law. Small blame to them; for one must bring along with him a good part of whatever he finds anywhere, and it is only because I happen to have brought something hither and here found it strengthened and enforced that what I have to say about this ancient institution claims a moment's present hearing and a somewhat longer patience for its application to some matters of to-day.

Not, however, that I am about to exhume this petrified practice for resuscitation among our modern selves: there is neither need nor chance for it in our general social plan. But because there is both an abiding need and a yet lingering chance to breathe some portion of its spirit into these our present practices I have undertaken this

task of evoking that same spirit from its too-long sleep, of exhibiting some samples of its former animation, of establishing the causes of its growing torpor, and of pointing out some circumstances of its near unbroken hibernation even until now.

And I shall try to do so in somewhat the following way:

I shall try to show how from the practices of this Comitatus or Companionship, as we shall call it a spirit sprang which in itself exemplified the truest and the loftiest ideal of Duty, literally defined and actually done, that ever dwelt with men and how this spirit was no petty offspring of a narrow system but as broad as humankind, and flourished best not among lilies under smiling skies, but amid blood and battle, storm and gnawing winter's stress among, in short, all ancient antetypes of things in our improved competitive world. I shall show that in the purest of responses which the appeal of a newly spreading Christianity aroused that spirit found its genuine religious counterpart, which it could interpret fully in the terms of its own inner life: but that this response was soon perverted and in time almost entirely corrupted by the base appeals of a later proselytism-at-any-price, and has only in rare cases fully recovered its first purity. I shall roughly trace the parallel growth of this Companionship into a scheme of national government the Feudal System, namely,- and note

furthermore how by the transformation therein of the fluent forms of the old spirit into rigid formulas of duty the deep personal loyalty of ancient life was gradually loosened and eventually came to spend its latent energy in various selfprovident enterprises, out of which it could at length recover nothing of its former state but an impersonal and superficial code of morals, in whose pedantisms, priggeries, and platitudes it has lain sleepful ever since. And I shall point out some few manifestations of our present spiritual state, and find the reader, if he shall not long before have found them for himself— or left my neighborhood, some lessons from that former age which, well learned by these complaining times, might make their remedy.

And I shall not, if possible, hereafter practice this unhappy style of circumscriptive speech, but strike straight to the heart of those examples which would speak to us across the stretch of ten forgetful centuries.

3. BEGINNINGS

Several deep diggers of the scholarly persuasion have given us their divers deep opinions on the origin and early growth of the Companionship,foregoing all which we shall get at once to certain passages in the Germania * of Tacitus which keep for us a portrait of the practice at its highest * Chapters XIII and XIV.

flourishing. This portrayal is at best in abstract outline only: neither the full figure nor the living soul do we find here. But another place and speech supply both lacks; in whose words the shapes are flesh and the spirit breathes discernible therethrough. To these the reader shall in time be brought.

First, then, we find our Roman author telling us that “it is no disgrace for any German youth to show himself among the members of a Company "; and if we wonder why shame might attach to the position we are duly told by certain Tacitean commentators that the legal standing of a Companion toward his chief was that of slave to lord. Such voluntary slavery was the price paid to a chosen leader by the impecunious or aspiring young Germanic warrior for his living and the gift of battle-horse and terrible "bloody and victorious " battle-spear. But, as our historian has hastened to inform us, so far from being held disgraceful, such a servitude was held in highly honorable demand. "For the strength and glory of each chieftain lay in having always a great band of chosen youth about him, as an ornament in time of peace, a guard in war: by means of them his fame might spread not only through his own tribe but to neighboring nations also, gaining him both reverence and gifts and winning wars with his mere name.”

Whereby these bands were soon become an indispensability to the most modest princeling and

might almost dictate their own terms of service. These were not, however, very hard; in addition to good fare and furnishings, they demanded from their leader only ample grounds for admiration of himself; without which, truly, no amount of promised pampering and splendid apparatus could have slightly tempted them. "Shameful is it," says our Roman," when the battle has been joined, for a prince to be surpassed in bravery." Then, indeed, his band would not be long in taking back their freedom and betaking themselves to a nobler leader. But such necessity was rare enough, if ever it occurred; for the chieftain lived upon his reputation and became in fact the servant of his servants' eyes in order to preserve it.

And what therefor was asked of the companions? Perfect readiness at all times to surrender their lives utterly. "Shameful is it," Tacitus continues, "for Companions when in battle not to be the equals of their lord in bravery. Yea, truly, it is life-long infamy and crime for any to retreat from fight survivor of his lord. To defend him, guard him, give their bravest deeds to brighten his own glory,- these are the Companions' special part and sacred duty. Princes strive for victory; Companions for their princes.'

Here, then, are certain traits of this our chosen type, thus pictured to us in the skeleton shapes of their politico-economical aspects only, but despite it promising the patient reader much more animated matter when their bones are once em