stations: the spiritual love
between man and woman (which deteriorated later on into the deification
of woman), the new religion of the German mystics, the awakening
appreciation of the beauty of nature, the sudden outburst of German
poetry--no sooner born than it reached perfection--the specifically
European Gothic architecture, so completely independent of the old art.
All these new creations had their origin in the strange craving of the
period for something novel and romantic, something hitherto unknown.
This longing begot the ideal of chivalry and a wealth of half human,
half preter-human conceptions, such as the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy
Grail. And all at once, something unprecedented, something of which the
race had as yet no experience, had come to pass: love, which had nothing
in common with sensuality, which was even deliberately hostile to it,
love which welled up in one soul and flowed into the other--presupposing
personality--love was there! If, therefore, I have gone into detail, I
hope that it has served to elucidate the principal theme of this part of
my book, namely, the spiritual part of man for woman aspiring to the
metaphysical, which is so alien to our modern feeling.

It is necessary to begin by sketching a background which shall set off
the new phenomenon. The spiritual achievement of the first millenary was
the construction of the Christian system of the universe the Church had
complete knowledge of all things in heaven and earth--symbols merely of
the eternal verities; her wisdom almost equalled divine wisdom, for the
secrets of life and death had been revealed and surrendered to her; St.
Chrysostom's words uttered in the fourth century, "The Church is God,"
had become a fact. The profoundest wisdom, the greatest power, were
hers; the loftiest ideal had been realised as it has never been realised
before or since. As the wisdom of the Church had been a direct gift of
God, so her power, too, had divine origin and reached beyond this
earthly life. The Church alone held the key to eternal bliss, her curse
meant everlasting damnation. To be excommunicated was to be bereaved of
temporal and eternal happiness. A man who had been excommunicated was
worse off than a wild beast; he was surrendered to the devils in hell,
and he knew it. There was but one road to salvation: to do penance and
humbly submit to the Church. This has been symbolised for all times by
the memorable submission of the Roman-German