Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/58

similar interposition from Heaven in their own persons; their minds wrought up by many causes to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and their hearts glowing with a fervour that no other ages can boast—they were well prepared to receive the impressions naturally made upon a heated fancy; and to put credit in tales which the distress of their situation prevented them from investigating, and their ignorance or credulity debarred from doubt. Hence, with the lives of the Fathers of the Church, they interwove prodigies of another land; and being further willing to address the prejudices of those they might hope to convert, adorned their martyrologies with fictitious incidents of oriental structure—even as, to conciliate the heathen, they introduced into their religious buildings, the statues of pagan worship, dignifying them with novel names, and serving them with novel cere-