After the fifth century the influence upon the ethics of the Church of the war system of the civilized world of the south was reënforced by the martial spirit of the barbarian world of the north. That world was now, largely through the missions of the monastic Church, being rapidly brought within the pale of Christianity. But all these northern peoples were the very incarnation of the war spirit. Their favorite deities were gods who delighted in battle and bloodshed. Fighters these men were, and fighters they remained even after conversion and baptism. The mingling of moralities which followed their conversion is well illustrated by the passionate outburst of the Frankish chieftain Clovis as he listened to the story of the Crucifixion: “Oh,” he exclaimed, “if only I could have been there with my trusty warriors!” The soul of Clovis lived on in his race. Four centuries later these Frankish warriors, as knight crusaders, were on the spot of the Crucifixion, redeeming with lance and sword the tomb of the slain Christ from the hands of infidels. It was this ineradicable war spirit of the northern barbarians to which was due, perhaps more than to any other agency, the infusion of a military spirit into that church of which the Founder was the Prince of Peace. Among the customs of the early Germans there was one which had such a positive influence upon the evolution we are tracing in Church morality that we must here make special note of it. This was the ordeal by fire, by water, or by wager of battle to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person. The prominent place held by this institution among savage or semicivilized peoples is familiar to the student of primitive society. Now the German folk brought with them this institution, and with it the belief which made the ordeal, and particularly the ordeal by combat, a solemn judicial matter in which God rendered decision and gave victory to the one whose cause was just. This barbarian conception of the wager of battle between individuals became incorporated with the common body of Christian ideas and beliefs. The same manner of thinking was perforce applied to war. A conflict between great armies was conceived as a wager of battle in which God gave victory to the right. Thus was war consecrated and made an agency whereby God executes judgment among the nations. [Sidenote: (_c_) The war records of the Old Hebrew Testament]