he face of
those who were worshipping the divine either in art or nature--in picture
or statue--in field or cloud or sea--in man, woman, or child--which I
have never seen kindled by any talking about the nature and attributes of
God. Mention but the word divinity, and our sense of the divine is
clouded.

CHAPTER XVII: YDGRUN AND THE YDGRUNITES

In spite of all the to-do they make about their idols, and the temples
they build, and the priests and priestesses whom they support, I could
never think that their professed religion was more than skin-deep; but
they had another which they carried with them into all their actions; and
although no one from the outside of things would suspect it to have any
existence at all, it was in reality their great guide, the mariner's
compass of their lives; so that there were very few things which they
ever either did, or refrained from doing, without reference to its
precepts.

Now I suspected that their professed faith had no great hold upon
them--firstly, because I often heard the priests complain of the
prevailing indifference, and they would hardly have done so without
reason; secondly, because of the show which was made, for there was none
of this about the worship of the goddess Ydgrun, in whom they really did
believe; thirdly, because though the priests were constantly abusing
Ydgrun as being the great enemy of the gods, it was well known that she
had no more devoted worshippers in the whole country than these very
persons, who were often priests of Ydgrun rather than of their own
deities. Neither am I by any means sure that these were not the best of
the priests.

Ydgrun certainly occupied a very anomalous position; she was held to be
both omnipresent and omnipotent, but she was not an elevated conception,
and was sometimes both cruel and absurd. Even her most devoted
worshippers were a little ashamed of her, and served her more with heart
and in deed than with their tongues. Theirs was no lip service; on the
contrary, even when worshipping her most devoutly, they would often deny
her. Take her all in all, however, she was a beneficent and useful
deity, who did not care how much she was denied so long as she was obeyed
and feared, and who kept hundreds of thousands in those paths which make
life tolerably happy, who would never have been kept there otherwise, and
over whom a higher and more spiritual ideal would have had no power.

I greatly doubt whether the Er