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196 EEUGION OF THE NORTHMEN.
CHAPTEK XIX.
EUAGES OF THE GODS.
The Northmen, like most other heathen nations,
had images of their Gods. The object of these
images was originally to make manifest to the
senses the attributes of the Gods, and thus secure
the devotion of the less enhghtened classes. But in
course of time, at least with the great mass, the
image became confounded with the Divinity by
whom it was thought to be animated, and thus became
an object of that worship properly due to the
superior being, of which it was only the representa-
tive. Thus arose Image-Worship among the Northmen
as among so many other nations, and became
a productive source of the grossest superstition.
However [rude we may consider the Plastic Art
to have been among our heathen forefathers, in
comparison with what it was among the Greeks and
Romans, and what it now is among the enlightened
nations of Europe, still it was sufficiently cultivated
at an early period, for the purpose of making, out of
such material as could be obtained^ a likeness of the
bodily form under which they conceived of the
various Gods. These images it appears, were