In his lifetime the darkness of Heaven was unbroken and there emerged no god whose attribute was mercy and long-suffering; the Day of Judgment was still too recent, its memory too clear and overwhelming, to admit of the idea of a Divine Love or a Father who had pity on his children. Fear, and fear only, led his people to the feet of the Lord. The God of Vengeance of the first generation and the tribal superman who gradually ousted him from his pride of place were alike wrathful, jealous of their despotism and greedily expectant of mouth-honour. Hence, propitiation and ignorance were the whole religious duty of man, and the rites wherewith deity was duly worshipped were rites of crawling flattery and sacrifice.... The blood of sinners was acceptable in the sight of Heaven; the Lord Almighty had destroyed a world that he might slake his vengeance, and his lineal descendants, the celestial warriors, rejoiced in the slaughter of those who had borne arms against their worshippers—in the end, rejoiced in blood for itself and the savour of the burnt sacrifice. And a race cowed spiritually (lest worse befall it) evolved its rites of sacrificial cruelty, paying tribute to a god who took ceaseless pleasure in the humbling of his people and could only be appeased by their suffering. There were seasons and regions where abasement produced its own reaction; when, for all the savour of sacrificial cruelty, the gods remained deaf to the prayers of their worshippers, delivered them into the hands of their enemies or chastened them with famine and pestilence. Hope of salvation beaten out of them, the worshippers, like rats driven into a corner, ceased to grovel and turned on the tyrants who had failed them; and the Lord Almighty Who made the heavens, shrunk to the dimensions of a local fetish, was upbraided and beaten in effigy.