Before this altar stands a young maid, showing neither ornament nor weapon of defense,—a Virgin barefooted, with a child in her arms.
She comes down the hill, a smile on her lips; the brilliant light still encircles her brow and the brow of the infant; she comes straight up to the allied gods, who begin to look at each other in utter consternation.
She draws nearer, and all of a sudden an irresistible panic seizes Jupiter and Odin, Mars and Thor, Wainomoinen and Perun, together with the Eumenides, the Tassanis, the Cyclops, and the Giants, and all turn back towards the river, cross it in fearful disorder, and crush each other in their desperate flight, while their own temples and their own statues fall to pieces in the universal destruction.
Some of these were buried in the Rhine, where we shall hereafter find them once more; the remainder reached in sad condition their northern homes, abandoning almost the whole of Germany to Jesus and Mary.
It is but right to notice that in all the traditions which speak of this struggle between the gods and the rising religion of Christ, no mention is ever made of the Teut and the Esus of the Celts, the Alfader of the Scandinavians, the Jumala of the Finns, and the Bog of the Slaves,—nor is the Unknown God of the Romans ever mentioned. The reason is that each one of these grand deities, like the Indra of the Indian heaven, contained all the others and represented to the mind the idea of the only one eternal God.
This grand but vain effort of the pagan gods was made, according to tradition, about the year 510 of the Christian era. In the course of the same year King Clovis determined to erect a temple in honor of Christ which should be worthy of Him, and laid the foundation of the Minster at Strasbourg, perhaps with a design to replace the little chapel, which had disappeared in so miraculous a manner.
