* There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.

And the people, recovering courage, uttered loud cries: 

There is but one God, said they transported with fury, and Mahomet is his prophet!  Accursed be he who believeth not!

God of goodness, grant us to exterminate these Christians; it is for thy glory we fight, and our death is a martyrdom for thy name.  And then, offering victims, they prepared for battle.

On the other side, the Russians, kneeling, said: 

We render thanks to God, and celebrate his power.  He hath strengthened our arm to humble his enemies.  Hear our prayers, thou God of mercy!  To please thee, we will pass three days without eating either meat or eggs.  Grant us to extirpate these impious Mahometans, and to overturn their empire.  To thee we will consecrate the tenth of our spoil; to thee we will raise new temples.

And the priests filled the churches with clouds of smoke, and said to the people: 

We pray for you, God accepteth our incense, and blesseth your arms.  Continue to fast and to fight; confess to us your secret sins; give your wealth to the church; we will absolve you from your crimes, and you shall die in a state of grace.

And they sprinkled water upon the people, dealt out to them, as amulets and charms, small relics of the dead, and the people breathed war and combat.

Struck with this contrast of the same passions, and grieving for their fatal consequences, I was considering the difficulty with which the common judge could yield to prayers so contradictory; when the Genius, glowing with anger, spoke with vehemence: 

What accents of madness strike my ear?  What blind and perverse delirium disorders the spirits of the nations?  Sacrilegious prayers rise not from the earth! and you, oh Heavens, reject their homicidal vows and impious thanksgivings!  Deluded mortals! is it thus you revere the Divinity?  Say then; how should he, whom you style your common father, receive the homage of his children murdering one another?  Ye victors! with what eye should he view your hands reeking in the blood he hath created?  And, what do you expect, oh vanquished, from useless groans?  Hath God the heart of a mortal, with passions ever changing?  Is he, like you, agitated with vengeance or compassion, with wrath or repentance?  What base conception of the most sublime of beings!  According to them, it would seem, that God whimsical and capricious, is angered or appeased as a man:  that he loves and hates alternately; that he punishes or favors; that, weak or wicked, he broods over his hatred; that, contradictory or perfidious, he lays snares to entrap; that he punishes the evils he permits; that he foresees but hinders not crimes; that, like a corrupt judge, he is bribed by offerings; like an ignorant despot, he makes laws and revokes them; that, like a savage tyrant, he grants or resumes favors without reason, and can only be appeased by servility.