As Christianity was then preached, it was in many respects the same thing under a different name. Prayers formerly addressed to Odin or Frey were now addressed to Christ and the Virgin Mary, and though offerings of horses and bullocks were discontinued, the fragrant incense was still supposed to rise to the nostrils of the new god and propitiate his favor. The salient and essential difference between the old and the new faith, and the only one which the Norsemen in the beginning vividly apprehended, was the great doctrine of peace upon earth and good-will among men. While Odin and Thor took pleasure in bloodshed and rejoiced in war, Christ the White loved peace and accorded no merit to the man-slayer. [Illustration: OLD NORSE LOOM. FROM FANE NEAR BERGEN.] That this doctrine, though it was slow to affect the lives of the new converts, nevertheless from generation to generation wrought a change in the moral consciousness of the Norsemen, can scarcely be questioned. The old Asa faith was inconsistent with any kind of civilization, because it meant, in the end, universal destruction. As long as killing was _per se_ meritorious and secured the favor of the gods and honor among men, no trade but that of arms could flourish, and every peaceful industry became impossible. In Iceland, where the spirit of the old Germanic paganism survived, even long after the introduction of Christianity, internecine feuds of the most atrocious character prevailed for centuries, resulting in a gradual decadence, followed by stagnation and decay. The result in Norway, as the subsequent narrative will show, was scarcely better. A universal exhaustion followed the long carnival of bloodshed, and a heavy lethargy, lasting for four hundred years, settled upon the people.