42

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap. should satiate themselves with ale from the skullsj. of their enemies, whom they had slain in battle.

Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratifiedat once the passion of revenge and that of intem-perance , the ruling inclinations of barbarians ,they despised the dangers of war , and increasedtheir native ferocity against: the vanquished bytheir religious prejudices. We know little of theOther theological tenets of the Saxons: We onlylearn that they were polytheists ; that theyworshipped the fun and moon ; that they adoredthe god of thunder, under the name of 1 hor;that they had images in their temples ; that theypractised sacrifices; believed firmly in spells andinchantments; and admitted in general a systemof doctrines , which they held as sacred , butwhich , like all other superstitions , must carrythe air of the wildest extravagance, if propound-ed to those who are not familiarized to it fromtheir earliest infancy.

The constant hostilities , which the Saxonsmaintained against the Britons , would naturallyindispose them for receiving the Christian faith,when preached to them by such inveterateenemies; and perhaps the Britons, as is objectedto them by Gildas and Bede, were not o verso ndof communicating to their cruel invaders thedoctrine of eternal life and salvation. But as acivilized people , however subdued by arms ,still maintain a sensible superiority over barbarousand ignorant nations , all the other northern con-querors.of Europe had been already induced to