Excerpt from Missions and Apostles of Medieval Europe For though it may be true that in early times the Teuton knew nothing of temples made with hands, that the Deity, whom no enclosure could contain, or mortal form rep resent, received the adoration of his wor shippers in the obscurity of the wood, or on the lonely mountain-top, yet without doubt the introduction of an elaborate form of polytheism brought with it in time a more elaborate form of external worship. The transition from the sacred oak-grove to the hill altar and the cairn was easy. Equally easy the transition thence to the temple of wood, with its nave and shrine, its holy place, and its holy of holies. In the Norse temples, formed doubtless on a plan common in earlier times, the images of the gods stood on a platform in a shrine. In front of them was the altar, on which burnt the holy fire. Ou it, too, was laid the great ring, which, stained with the sacred blood, was placed in the hand of all such as were about to take any solemn oath. Hard by also was the brazen vessel, in which the blood of the slaughtered victims was caught, and the brush or twig wherewith the worshippers were sprinkled, while they stood behind a partition-wall opposite the platform of the gods, and from this outer court beheld the ceremonies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

From the Author's PREFACE: THESE Lives are naturally based, to a considerable extent, on my History of Christian Missions in the Middle Ages, which I have at times been advised to publish in a somewhat more popular form, but the numerous notes and references there given have been omitted, while the Lives themselves have been re-cast, and in some cases entirely re-written. The Mediaeval Period is apt to be altogether overlooked in modern accounts of Christian Missions, and yet it was fertile in noble and heroic men, who laid the foundations of many of the Churches of Modern Europe, and into whose labours we have entered. If we remember to make due allowance for the Age in which they lived, we shall, I think, conclude that the roll of missionary heroes, since the days of the Apostles, can point to few more glorious names than of some of those whose Memoirs are recorded in the following pages.