And beside all these, and worse than all these, there were the terrors of the unseen world; very real in those poor monks' eyes, though not in ours. There were Nixes in the streams, and Kobolds in the caves, and Tannhauser in the dark pine-glades, who hated the Christian man, and would lure him to his death. There were fair swan-maidens and elf-maidens; nay, dame Venus herself, and Herodias the dancer, with all their rout of revellers; who would tempt him to sin, and having made him sell his soul, destroy both body and soul in hell. There was Satan and all the devils, too, plotting to stop the Christian man from building the house of the Lord, and preaching the gospel to the heathen; ready to call up storms, and floods, and forest fires; to hurl the crag down from the cliffs, or drop the rotting tree on their defenceless heads--all real and terrible in those poor monks' eyes, as they walked on, singing their psalms, and reading their Gospels, and praying to God to save them, for they could not save themselves; and to guide them, for they knew not, like Abraham, whither they went; and to show them the place where they should build the house of the Lord, and preach righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit to the heathen round. We talk still, thank heaven, of heroes, and understand what that great word should mean. But were not these poor monks heroes? Knights-errant of God, doing his work as they best knew how. We have a purer gospel than they: we understand our Bibles better. But if they had not done what they did, where would have been now our gospel, and our Bible? We cannot tell. It was a wise old saw of our forefathers--'Do not speak ill of the bridge which carries you over.' If Sturmi had had a 'holy longing' to get into the wild wood, now he had a 'holy longing' to go back; and to find St. Boniface, and tell him what a pleasant place Hersfelt was, and the quality of the soil, and the direction of the watershed, and the meadows, and springs, and so forth, in a very practical way. And St. Boniface answered, that the place seemed good enough; but that he was afraid for them, on account of the savage heathen Saxons. They must go deeper into the forest, and then they would be safe. So he went back to his fellow-hermits, and they made to themselves a canoe; and went paddling up and down the Fulda stream, beneath the alder boughs, 'trying the mouths of the mountain-streams, and landing to survey the hills and ridges,'--pioneers of civilization none the less because they pioneered in the name of Him who made earth and heaven: but they found nothing which they thought would suit the blessed St. Boniface, save that they stayed a little at the place which is called Ruohen-bah, 'the rough brook,' to see if it would suit; but it would not. So they went back to their birch huts to fast and pray once more.