Missions and Apostles of Medieval Europe (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Missions and Apostles of Medieval Europe

For though it may be true that in early times the Teuton knew nothing of temples made with hands, that the Deity, whom no enclosure could contain, or mortal form rep resent, received the adoration of his wor shippers in the obscurity of the wood, or on the lonely mountain-top, yet without doubt the introduction of an elaborate form of polytheism brought with it in time a more elaborate form of external worship.

The transition from the sacred oak-grove to the hill altar and the cairn was easy. Equally easy the transition thence to the temple of wood, with its nave and shrine, its holy place, and its holy of holies. In the Norse temples, formed doubtless on a plan common in earlier times, the images of the gods stood on a platform in a shrine. In front of them was the altar, on which burnt the holy fire. Ou it, too, was laid the great ring, which, stained with the sacred blood, was placed in the hand of all such as were about to take any solemn oath. Hard by also was the brazen vessel, in which the blood of the slaughtered victims was caught, and the brush or twig wherewith the worshippers were sprinkled, while they stood behind a partition-wall opposite the platform of the gods, and from this outer court beheld the ceremonies.

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