"It is superstition," replied he, "which, the Evil One sows in weak and rebellions hearts. I have read in our books about the doings of the heathens, how they perform their idolatrous rites in dark woods; by lonely wells and even at the graves of their dead." "But they are no longer heathens," said Dame Hadwig. "They are all baptized and belong to some parish-church. But nevertheless some of the old traditions still live among them; and though these have lost their meaning, they yet run through their thoughts and actions, as the Rhine does in winter, flowing noiselessly on, under the icy cover of the Bodensee. What would you do with them?" "Annihilate them," said Ekkehard. "He who forsakes his christian faith and breaks the vows of his baptism, shall be eternally damned." "Not so fast, my young zealot!" continued Dame Hadwig. "My good Hegau people are not to lose their heads, because they prefer sitting on the cold top of the Hohenkrähen, on the first night of November, to lying on their straw-mattresses. For all that, they do their duties well enough, and fought under Charlemagne against the heathenish Saxons, as if everyone of them had been a chosen combatant of the Church itself." "With the Devil there can be no peace," cried Ekkehard hotly. "Are you going to be lukewarm in your faith, noble Mistress?" "In reigning over a country," returned she with a slight sarcasm in her voice--"one learns a good deal that is not written down in books. Don't you know that a weak man is often more easily defeated by his own weakness, than by the sharpness of the sword? When the holy Gallus one day visited the ruins of Bregenz, he found the altar of St. Amelia destroyed, and in its place three metal idols erected; and around the great beer-kettle the men sat drinking; for this is a ceremony which is never omitted when our Suabians wish to show their piety in the old fashion. The holy Gallus did not hurt a single man amongst them; but he cut their idols to pieces, threw them into the green waves of the lake, and made a large hole into their beer-kettle. On this very spot he preached the Gospel to them, and when they saw that no fire fell down from the Heavens to destroy him, they were convinced that their Gods were powerless, and so became converted. So you see that to be sensible is not to be lukewarm." ... "That was in those times," began Ekkehard, but Dame Hadwig continued: "And now the Church has been established from the source of the Rhine to the North Sea, and far stronger than the ancient castles of the Romans, a chain of monasteries, fortresses of the christian faith, runs through the land. Even into the recesses of the Black-forest the Gospel has penetrated; so why should we wage war so fiercely against the miserable stragglers of the olden times?" "Then you had better reward them," said Ekkehard bitterly.