Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/69

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For Thou art angry with thine enemies! For these, and for our errors, And sins that paint their terrors, We bow our heads before Thee; and we laud And magnify Thy name, Almighty God! But Thy most dreaded instrument, In working out a pure intent, Is man—array 'd for mutual slaughter. Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter; Thou cloth'st the wicked in their dazzling mail, And by Thy just permission they prevail; Thine arm from peril guards the coasts Of them who in Thy law delight: Thy presence turns the scale of doubtful fight, Tremendous God of battles! Lord of hosts!'

I am quite aware that these utterances have been made the subject of severe criticism; but has any one ever shown that they do not accurately portray the public feeling in this country at the time? For the parochial picture of the Almighty they expose to our view, the poet drew not so much on his own imagination as on that of a war-wearied people, and the paints were mixed by the confident hand of a self-commending Pharisaism. That the ancient Celts and Teutons should have agreed at one time in making their war-god their greatest divinity, or their greatest divinity a war-god, need, then, astonish no one who will bear in mind the ever-present tendency of their descendants to treat in much the same way a God whom they regard as infinitely greater. There are reasons, however, for thinking that the war-like attributes of their war-god never led the ancient Celts wholly to forget the other aspects of his being, though it is not to be denied that, as long as they retained the original habits of the Aryan warrior, the martial qualities of their supreme divinity would be likely to