The times had changed in forty years. The modern world is turned by the
interests of the many, but the world of old revolved about the
ambitions of the few, and the transition began in Bernard's day after
the furnace of the eleventh century had poured its molten material out
upon the world to settle and cool again in the castings of nations,
separate and individual. There was less impulse, more rigidity; here
and there, there was more strength, but everywhere there was less fire;
and as interests grew in opposite directions and solidified apart, the
chances of any universal rising or joint battle for belief grew less.
Mankind moves westward with the sun; men's thoughts turn back to the
bright East, the source of every faith that moves humanity; at first,
for faith's sake, men may retrace their migration to its source and
give their own blood for their holy places; and after them a generation
will give its money for the honour of its God; but at the last, and
surely, comes the time of memory's fading, the winter of belief, the
night of faith's day, wherein a delicately nurtured and greedy race
will give neither gold nor blood, but only a prayer or a smile for the
hope of a life to come.
Gilbert Warde began the great march, as some others did, in earnest
trust and belief. He had struck blows in self-defence, and for
vengeance; he had fought once in Italy for sheer love of fighting and
the animal joy of the strong northerner in cut and thrust, and lately,
at Vezelay, he had fought a herd of drunken brutes for a woman's
safety; but he had not known the false and fierce delight of killing
men to please God.
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