much of the German territory virtually untouched by the
religion of the cross. Let it be remembered, however,
that what the Germans had so quickly accepted under
the name of Christianity was neither the ethics of Jesus,
nor the theology of St. Paul, nor any species of asceticism.
They continued to be, as they had been, a people for
whom fighting was the most important of occupations,
vengeance a matter of course, and fidelity to a chief the
most exigent of social duties. There had been nothing
like a right-about-face in their ideals or their mode of
living. What they had accepted was, in its most im-
portant aspect, a church organisation which looked
to Rome as its centre of authority and was felt to be
closely connected with the imperialistic pretensions of
the Frankish monarchy. The Saxons had lately been
brought into the church by wholesale at the point of the
sword.

In the domain of religion proper, as distinguished
from the machinery of the church, a process of adapta-
tion had been going on. The old gods had not been for-
gotten, nor did the clergy teach that they were unrealities.
As devils, witches, Unholde, they continued for a while
to be as real, perhaps, as they had ever been. Mean-
while there was much in the new system which a German
could use without any bouleversation of his ideas. The
magic of the church was not so very unlike that to which
he had been accustomed, and its doctrine of a life after
death was in the line of his own beliefs. So he readily
learned to swear by Christ and the saints, instead of
Donar and Ziu, and to substitute holy for interdicted
names in his incantations. For some time the lines were
not very distinctly drawn, and there was much friendly
comity between the old order and the new. A Christian

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