Odin, the central figure of Scandinavian paganism, shall be our emblem of the hero as divinity. And in the first place I protest against the theory that this paganism or any other religion has consisted of mere quackery, priestcraft, and dupery. Quackery gives birth to nothing; gives death to all. Man everywhere is the born enemy of lies, and paganism, to its followers, was at one time earnestly true. Nor can we admit that other theory, which attributed these mythologies to allegory, or to the play of poetic minds. Pagan religion, like every other, is indeed a symbol of what men felt about the universe, but a practical guiding knowledge of this mysterious life of theirs, and not a perfect poetic symbol of it, has been the want of men. The "Pilgrim's Progress" is a just and beautiful allegory, but it could never have preceded the faith which it symbolises. Men never risked their soul's life on allegories; there was a kind of fact at the heart of paganism. To the primitive pagan thinker, who was simple as a child, yet had a man's depth and strength, nature had as yet no name. It stood naked, flashing in on him, beautiful, awful, unspeakable; nature was preternatural. The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was then divine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. Still more was the body of man, and the mystery of his consciousness, an emblem to them of God, and truly worshipful. How much more, then, was the worship of a hero reasonable--the transcendent admiration of a great man! For great men are still admirable. At bottom there is nothing else admirable. Admiration for one higher than himself is to this hour the vivifying influence in man's life, and is the germ of Christianity itself. The greatest of all heroes is One whom we do not name here. Without doubt there was a first teacher and captain of these northern peoples, an Odin palpable to the sense, a real hero of flesh and blood. Tradition calls him inventor of the Runes, or Scandinavian alphabet, and again of poetry. To the wild Norse souls this noble-hearted man was hero, prophet, god. That the man Odin, speaking with a hero's voice and heart, as with an impressiveness out of Heaven, told his people the infinite importance of valour, how man thereby became a god; and that his people believed this message of his, and thought it a message out of Heaven, and believed him a divinity for telling it to them--this seems to me the primary seed-grain of the Norse religion. For that religion was a sternly impressive consecration of valour. _II.--The Hero as Prophet_