Or if we should others foremost not that we can venerate Him too much, or that we can think of Him too much. The error of Christendom has far more usually been that it has not thought of Him half enough—that it has put aside the mind of Christ, and taken in place thereof the mind of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, great in their way,--but not the mind of Him of whom we read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. combine with the thought of Him the thought of in the religious history of mankind, we have His own command to do so, so far as they are the likenesses of Himself, or so far as they convey to us any truth from the unseen world, or any lofty conception of human character. With the early Christian writers, we may believe that the Word, the Wisdom of God which appeared in its perfection in Jesus of Nazareth, had appeared in a measure in the examples of virtue and wisdom which had been seen before His coming. On the same principle we may apply this to those who have appeared since. He has Himself told us that in His true followers He is with mankind to the end of the world. In the holy life, in the courageous act, in the just law, is the Real Presence of Christ. Where these are, in proportion as they recall to us His divine excellence, there, far more than in any consecrated form or symbol, is the true worship due from a Christian to his Master. Sometimes, again, as in the Epistles, or in our own solitary communing with ourselves, all outward manifestations of the Father and of the Son, of outward nature and of Christian communion, seem to be withdrawn, and the eye of our mind is fixed on the Spirit alone. Our light then seems to come not from without but from within, not from external evidence but from inward conviction. That itself is a divine revelation. For the Spirit is as truly a manifestation of God as is the Son or the Father. The teaching of our own heart and conscience is enough. If we follow the promptings of truth and purity, of justice and humility, sooner or later we shall come back to the same Original Source. The witness of the Spirit of all goodness is the same as the witness of the life of Jesus, the same as the witness of the works of God our Creator. 3. And this distinction, which applies to particular wants of the life of each man, may be especially traced in the successive stages of the spiritual growth of individuals and of the human race itself. There is a beautiful poem of a German poet 16 of this century of whom it has been said that he represents the chief current and tendency of modern thought, in which he describes his wanderings in the Hartz Mountains, and as he rests in the house of a mountain peasant, a little child, the daughter of the house, sits at his feet, and looks up in his troubled countenance, and asks, Dost thou believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?' He makes answer in words which must be read in the original to see their full force. He says: 16 Heine. 'When I sate as a boy on my mother's knees, and learned from her to pray, I believed on God the Father, who reigns aloft so great and good, who created the beautiful earth and the beautiful men and women that are upon it, who to sun and moon and stars foretold their appointed course. And when I grew a little older and bigger, then I understood more and more, then I took in new truth with my reason and my understanding, and I believed on the Son-the wellbeloved Son, who in his love revealed to us what love is, and who for his own reward, as always happens, was crucified by the senseless world. And now that I am grown up, and that I have read many books and travelled in many lands, my heart swells, and with all my heart I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God. He it is who works the greatest of miracles, and greater miracles yet shall He work than we have yet seen. He it is who breaks down all the strongholds of oppression and sets the bondmen free. He it is who heals old deathwounds and throws into the old law new life. Through Him it is that all men become a race of nobles, equal in the sight of God. Through Him are dispersed the black clouds and dark cobwebs that bewilder our hearts and brains.' A thousand knights in armour clad Hath the Holy Ghost ordained, All His work and will to do, By His living force sustained. Bright their swords, their banners bright; Foremost in that sacred host? May we be such knights indeed, III. The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost will never cease to be the chief expression of Christian belief, and it has been endeavoured to show what is the true meaning of them. It may be that the Biblical words in some respects fall short of this high signification. But it is believed that on the whole they contain or suggest thoughts of this kind, and that in this development of their meaning, more than in the scholastic systems built upon them, lies their true vitality. Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt. But even when the true Biblical meaning of them has been recovered, there still remains the universal and the deeper truth within. In Christianity nothing is of real concern except that which makes us wiser and better; everything which does make us wiser and better is the very thing which Christianity intends. Therefore even in these three most sacred words there is yet, besides all the other meanings which we have found in them, the deepest and most sacred meaning of all-that which corresponds to them in the life of man. Many a one has repeated this Sacred Name, and yet never fulfilled in himself the truth which it conveys. Some have been unable to repeat it, and yet have grasped the substance which alone gives to it spiritual value. What John Bunyan said on his deathbed concerning prayer is equally true of all religious forms: 'Let thy heart be without words rather than thy words without heart. Wherever we are taught to know and understand the real nature of the world in which our lot is cast, there is a testimony, however humble, to the name of the Father; wherever we are taught to know and admire the highest and best of human excellence, there is a testimony to the name of the Son; wherever there is implanted in us a presence of freedom, purity, and love, there is a testimony to the name of the Holy Ghost. A. P. STANLEY. ICELAND. So far to the north-west of Europe lies this great island as to be a connecting link between the eastern and western continents, and it is said that on a clear day the Snæfells-Jökull in Iceland and Greenland's icy mountains may be seen simultaneously from the deck of a ship. Iceland is, however, a portion of Europe rather than of America; its fauna and flora are European, and its inhabitants are of the pure Scandinavian stock. Politically, as well as ethnologically, Iceland is an integral part of what we are accustomed to call Scandinavia,' a group of kindred countries, usually included by their own inhabitants in the comprehensive title of Norden, the North.' The countries so designated are Denmark, with its dependency Iceland, and the "United Kingdoms' (De Forenede Riger), Sweden and Norway. These northern countries have their own political and religious history, separating them distinctly from the rest of Europe proper on one side, and from the semi-Asiatic empire of Russia on the other. The Northmen have visited, as invaders and conquerors, all the principal European countries, but they have never bowed their own necks to any foreign yoke, and they have vindicated their independence with equal success against Pope and Kaiser. The Roman legions never invaded Scandinavia, and even to those Teutonic princes who claimed the inheritance of the Western Cæsars, the river Eyder was always 'Finis Romani Imperii.' The civil law, which was the best legacy left by Rome to her emancipated provinces, and which is still the basis of the legal system established throughout Western Europe, even in 'Caledonia invicta Romanis,' never prevailed in the far North. The Christian religion, which spread so rapidly over the Roman Empire, and so slowly beyond its limits, was long in conquering the stubborn worshippers of Odin; and even as late as A.D. 1000 the Scandinavians might still be called the Heathen of the Northern Sea.' Thus the feudal system and the ordinance of chivalry, both of which prevailed for so many centuries throughout Christendom, and so profoundly modified all political and social institutions in other Christian countries, hardly obtained any hold over Scandinavia. In particular, the feudal land tenures characteristic of Scotland never took root on the opposite side of the North Sea, nor in any Scandinavian dependency, such as Orkney and Shetland, where the complicated Scotch system of conveyancing has not yet been able to supersede (in spite of frequent encroachments) the simple allodial tenure of the free-born Northmen. To these important peculiarities of early northern history may be attributed the distinctive character of ancient Scandinavian traditions, customs, and literature, our knowledge of which has been mainly derived from Icelandic sources. Ten centuries have now elapsed since certain freedom-loving Norwegians, seeking a country where they might live in safety, far away from kings, jarls, and other evil-doers,' settled upon the recently discovered shores of Iceland. The free republic which they there established in the ninth century of the Christian era, resembled marvellously in its original constitution the communities flourishing in the south of Europe more than a thousand years earlier. Those who wish to understand the primitive social condition of the Aryan settlers in Europe may study authentic accounts of a comparatively modern Aryan migration in the North, and will find in the proceedings of Flóki or Ingólfr a singular resemblance to those of Odysseus or Æneas. Mr. J. A. Hjaltalín thus describes the first settlement of Iceland: When a chief had taken possession of an extensive tract of land, he allotted portions of it to his friends and retainers and even to his slaves; for it was a thing of frequent occurrence that slaves, when they distinguished themselves in any way, obtained their liberty and a farm from their master. The chief also built a temple at his residence, placing under its foundations earth from the temple in his old home. He was himself the priest of the temple, and had to keep it in repair, to perform the sacred rites and to bear the expense of the sacrificial feasts. His retainers, or those who had fixed their abodes within the boundaries of his settlement, were to pay a tax to the temple. They also had to attend their chief, and assist him in his quarrels with other chiefs. In return he had to adjust their quarrels, and protect them against other chiefs and their retainers. Thus a kind of patriarchal government was at once instituted, each chief being entirely independent of all other chiefs. 6 The first meeting of the Alping (Althing), or General Legislative Assembly for all Iceland, took place A.D. 929. The whole island was divided into thirteen districts under thirty-nine chiefs or temple priests,' each of whom had a seat in the Althing, and the right of taking with him two retainers; the total number of members was 144, and the Assembly exercised legislative and judicial powers over all Iceland. An aristocratic commonwealth of precisely the same character existed in Attica before the days of Solon : Toute autorité fut aux mains des Eupatrides; ils étaient seuls prêtres et seuls archontes. Seuls ils rendaient la justice et connaissaient les lois, qui n'étaient pas écrites et dont ils se transmettaient de père en fils les formules sacrées. Ces familles gardaient autant qu'il leur était possible les anciennes formes du régime patriarcal. Elles ne vivaient pas réunies dans la ville. Elles continuaient à vivre |