But Though Years Elapsed, And Fortunes Changed, Before This Dim Light Of The Early Church Became That Scorching And Devouring Flame Which, Later, Spread Terror And Confusion Among The Haunts Of The Still Lingering Ancient Gods, An Earnest Sense Of Duty Seems To Have Been Ever Present With Him.

If it cannot be denied that he shared the errors of other proselytizing monarchs, and put down Paganism with a stern and bloody hand, no merely personal injury ever weighed with him.

How grand is his reply to those who advise him to ravage with fire and sword the rebellious district of Throndhjem, as he had formerly punished numbers of his subjects who had rejected Christianity: - "We had then GOD'S honour to defend; but this treason against their sovereign is a much less grievous crime; it is more in my power to spare those who have dealt ill with me, than those whom God hated." The same hard measure which he meted to others he applied to his own actions: witness that curiously characteristic scene, when, sitting in his high seat, at table, lost in thought, he begins unconsciously to cut splinters from a piece of fir-wood which he held in his hand. The table servant, seeing what the King was about, says to him, (mark the respectful periphrasis!) "IT IS MONDAY, SIRE, TO-MORROW." The King looks at him, and it came into his mind what he was doing on a Sunday. He sweeps up the shavings he had made, sets fire to them, and lets them burn on his naked hand; "showing thereby that he would hold fast by God's law, and not trespass without punishment."

But whatever human weaknesses may have mingled with the pure ore of this noble character, whatever barbarities may have stained his career, they are forgotten in the pathetic close of his martial story.

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