Let us take another step:
While our ancestors filled the darkness with evil spirits, enemies of
mankind, they also believed in the existence of good spirits. These good
spirits sustained the same relation to God that the evil ones did to the
Devil. These good spirits protected the faithful from the temptations
and snares of the Evil One. They took care of those who carried amulets
and charms, of those who repeated prayers and counted beads, of those
who fasted and performed ceremonies. These good spirits would turn aside
the sword and arrow from the breast of the faithful. They made poison
harmless, they protected the credulous, and in a thousand ways defended
and rescued the true believer. They drove doubts from the minds of the
pious, sowed the seeds of credulity and faith, saved saints from the
wiles of women, painted the glories of heaven for those who fasted
and prayed, made it possible for the really good to dispense with the
pleasures of sense and to hate the Devil.
These angels watched over infants who had been baptized, over persons
who had made holy vows, over priests and nuns and wandering beggars who
believed.
These spirits were of various kinds: Some had once been men or women,
some had never lived in this world, and some had been angels from
the commencement. Nobody pretended to know exactly what they were, or
exactly how they looked, or in what way they went from place to place,
or how they affected or controlled the minds of men.
It was believed that the king of all these evil spirits was the Devil,
and that the king of all the good spirits was God. It was also believed
that God was in fact the king of all, and that the Devil himself was one
of the children of this God. This God and this Devil were at war, each
trying to secure the souls of men. God offered the rewards of eternal
joy and threatened eternal pain. The Devil baited his traps with present
pleasure, with the gratification of the senses, with the ecstasies of
love, and laughed at the joys of heaven and the pangs of hell. With
malicious hand he sowed the seeds of doubt--induced men to investigate,
to reason, to call for evidence, to rely upon themselves; planted in
their hearts the love of liberty, assisted them to break their chains,
to escape from their prisons and besought them to think. In this way he
corrupted the children of men.
Our fathers believed that they could by prayer, by sacrifice, by
fasting, by performing certain ceremonies, gain the assistance of this
God and of these good spirits. They were not quite logical. They did
not believe that the Devil was the author of all evil. They thought that
flood and famine, plague and cyclone, earthquake and war, were sometimes
sent by God as punishment for unbelief. They fell upon their knees and
with white lips, prayed the good God to stay his hand. They humbled
themselves, confessed their sins, and filled the heavens with their vows
and cries. With priests and prayers they tried to stay the plague. They
kissed the relics, fell at shrines, besought the Virgin and the saints,
but the prayers all died in the heartless air, and the plague swept on
to its natural end. Our poor fathers knew nothing of any science. Back
of all events they put spirits, good or bad, angels or demons, gods or
devils. To them nothing had what we call a natural cause. Everything was
the work of spirits. All was done by the supernatural, and everything
was done by evil spirits that they could do to ruin, punish, mislead and
damn the children of men. This world was a field of battle, and here the
hosts of heaven and hell waged war.