specifically European Gothic architecture, so completely independent of the old art.  All these new creations had their origin in the strange craving of the period for something novel and romantic, something hitherto unknown.  This longing begot the ideal of chivalry and a wealth of half human, half preter-human conceptions, such as the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Grail.  And all at once, something unprecedented, something of which the race had as yet no experience, had come to pass:  love, which had nothing in common with sensuality, which was even deliberately hostile to it, love which welled up in one soul and flowed into the other—­presupposing personality—­love was there!  If, therefore, I have gone into detail, I hope that it has served to elucidate the principal theme of this part of my book, namely, the spiritual part of man for woman aspiring to the metaphysical, which is so alien to our modern feeling.

It is necessary to begin by sketching a background which shall set off the new phenomenon.  The spiritual achievement of the first millenary was the construction of the Christian system of the universe the Church had complete knowledge of all things in heaven and earth—­symbols merely of the eternal verities; her wisdom almost equalled divine wisdom, for the secrets of life and death had been revealed and surrendered to her; St. Chrysostom’s words uttered in the fourth century, “The Church is God,” had become a fact.  The profoundest wisdom, the greatest power, were hers; the loftiest ideal had been realised as it has never been realised before or since.  As the wisdom of the Church had been a direct gift of God, so her power, too, had divine origin and reached beyond this earthly life.  The Church alone held the key to eternal bliss, her curse meant everlasting damnation.  To be excommunicated was to be bereaved of temporal and eternal happiness.  A man who had been excommunicated was worse off than a wild beast; he was surrendered to the devils in hell, and he knew it.  There was but one road to salvation:  to do penance and humbly submit to the Church.  This has been symbolised for all times by the memorable submission of the Roman-German emperor, who stood for three days, barefooted and fasting, in the snow in the courtyard of Canossa, before he was received back into the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God was synonymous with the Church; Jews and pagans were the natural children of the devil, but the dissenter, the heretic who dared to question a single proposition of the divine system, or was bold enough to think on original lines—­in other words in contradiction to tradition—­voluntarily turned his back on God, and with seeing eyes went into the kingdom of the devil.  He was wholly evil, and no earthly punishment fitted his crime.  The emperor Theodosius, as far back as A.D. 380, had called such heretics “insane and demented,” and the burning of their bodies at the stake which prevented their souls from falling into the hands of the devil, was