Nevertheless, her remarks have haunted me, and I have since met with many
very godly people who have had a great knowledge of divinity, but no
sense of the divine: and again, I have seen a radiance upon the face of
those who were worshipping the divine either in art or nature--in picture
or statue--in field or cloud or sea--in man, woman, or child--which I
have never seen kindled by any talking about the nature and attributes of
God. Mention but the word divinity, and our sense of the divine is
clouded.
CHAPTER XVII: YDGRUN AND THE YDGRUNITES
In spite of all the to-do they make about their idols, and the temples
they build, and the priests and priestesses whom they support, I could
never think that their professed religion was more than skin-deep; but
they had another which they carried with them into all their actions; and
although no one from the outside of things would suspect it to have any
existence at all, it was in reality their great guide, the mariner's
compass of their lives; so that there were very few things which they
ever either did, or refrained from doing, without reference to its
precepts.
Now I suspected that their professed faith had no great hold upon
them--firstly, because I often heard the priests complain of the
prevailing indifference, and they would hardly have done so without
reason; secondly, because of the show which was made, for there was none
of this about the worship of the goddess Ydgrun, in whom they really did
believe; thirdly, because though the priests were constantly abusing
Ydgrun as being the great enemy of the gods, it was well known that she
had no more devoted worshippers in the whole country than these very
persons, who were often priests of Ydgrun rather than of their own
deities.
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