The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 01: Introduction I — John Shaqi
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 01: Introduction IMotley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 01: Introduction I
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
The Gauls were an agricultural people. They were not without many arts
of life. They had extensive flocks and herds; and they even exported
salted provisions as far as Rome. The truculent German, Ger-mane,
Heer-mann, War-man, considered carnage the only useful occupation,
and despised agriculture as enervating and ignoble. It was base, in his
opinion, to gain by sweat what was more easily acquired by blood. The
land was divided annually by the magistrates, certain farms being
assigned to certain families, who were forced to leave them at the
expiration of the year. They cultivated as a common property the lands
allotted by the magistrates, but it was easier to summon them to the
battle-field than to the plough. Thus they were more fitted for the
roaming and conquering life which Providence was to assign to them for
ages, than if they had become more prone to root themselves in the soil.
The Gauls built towns and villages. The German built his solitary hut
where inclination prompted. Close neighborhood was not to his taste.
In their system of religion the two races were most widely contrasted.
The Gauls were a priest-ridden race. Their Druids were a dominant caste,
presiding even over civil affairs, while in religious matters their
authority was despotic. What were the principles of their wild Theology
will never be thoroughly ascertained, but we know too much of its
sanguinary rites. The imagination shudders to penetrate those shaggy
forests, ringing with the death-shrieks of ten thousand human victims,
and with the hideous hymns chanted by smoke-and-blood-stained priests to
the savage gods whom they served.
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