Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/220

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instance. Either God did not know the deeds of men, or else he weighed them in an unfair balance. He was wroth if any one ventured to add the usual reserve of God's will to anything which he, King William, undertook or ordered to be undertaken. He had that belief in himself that he would have everything referred to his own wisdom and power only. Modern ideas might be less shocked at another alleged sign of his impiety. He was said to have declared publicly that neither Saint Peter nor any other saint had any influence with God, and that he would ask none of them for help. In all this we are again left in doubt whether we are dealing with a speculative unbeliever, or only with one who was so puffed up with pride that he liked not to be reminded of any power greater than his own, least of all of a power which might some day call him to account for his evil deeds. And though William Rufus clearly went lengths in his defiance of God to which even bad men were unaccustomed, we must remember that something of the same kind in a less degree was not uncommon in his time. Blasphemy strictly so called, that is, neither ]