to feel
who have received a more sure word of prophecy, adds in words of rare
beauty: "And perhaps it shall seem to us as if that star in the natural
heavens which guided those Eastern sages from their distant home, was
but the symbol of many a star which, in the world's mystical night, such
as, being faithfully followed, availed to lead humble and devout hearts
from far-off regions of superstition and error, till they knelt beside
the cradle of the Babe of Bethlehem, and saw all their weary wanderings
repaid in a moment, and all their desires finding a perfect fulfilment
in Him."]

LECTURE II.

THE METHODS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN DEALING WITH HEATHENISM

The coincidences of our present conquest of the non-Christian races with
that to which the Apostolic Church was called are numerous and striking.
Not even one hundred years ago was the struggle with heathen error so
similar to that of the early Church.

To a great extent the missionary efforts of the mediaeval centuries
encountered only crude systems, which it was comparatively easy to
overcome. The rude tribes of Northern Europe were converted by the
Christianity of the later Roman Empire, even though they were
conquerors. Their gods of war and brute force did not meet all the
demands of life. As a source of hope and comfort, their religion had
little to be compared with the Christian faith, and as to philosophy
they had none. They had inherited the simple nature worship which was
common to all branches of the Aryan race, and they had expanded it into
various ramifications of polytheism; but they had not fortified it with
subtle speculations like those of the Indo-Aryans, nor had their
mythologies become intrenched in inveterate custom, and the national
pride which attends an advanced civilization.

At a later day Christian missionaries in Britain found the Norse
religion of the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, scarcely holding the
confidence of either rulers or subjects. They had valued their gods
chiefly for the purposes of war, and they had not always proved
reliable. The king of Northumbria, like Clovis of France, had vowed to
exchange his deities for the God of the Christians if victory should be
given him on a certain battle-field; and when he had assembled his
thanes to listen to a discussion between the missionary Paulinus and the
priests of Woden on the comparative merits of their respective faiths,
the high priest frankly admitted his dissa