the hour for putting forth the exertion of human strength did not come
until time had been allowed for completing, in the most deliberate and
solemn manner, the work of imploring the protection of Heaven.

Ethelred seems by his conduct on this occasion to have inherited from
his father, even more than Alfred, the spirit of religious devotion at
least so far as the strict and faithful observance of religious forms
was concerned. There was, it is true, a particular reason in this case
why the forms of divine service should be faithfully observed, and
that is, that the war was considered in a great measure a religious
war. The Danes were pagans. The Saxons were Christians. In making
their attacks upon the dominions of Ethelred, the ruthless invaders
were animated by a special hatred of the name of Christ, and they
evinced a special hostility toward every edifice, or institution, or
observance which bore the Christian name. The Saxons, therefore, in
resisting them, felt that they were not only fighting for their own
possessions and for their own lives, but that they were defending
the kingdom of God, and that he, looking down from his throne in
the heavens, regarded them as the champions of his cause; and,
consequently, that he would either protect them in the struggle, or,
if they fell, that he would receive them to mansions of special glory
and happiness in heaven, as martyrs who had shed their blood in his
service and for his glory.

Taking this view of the subject, Ethelred, instead of going out to
battle at the early dawn, collected his officers into his tent, and
formed them into a religious congregation. Alfred, on the other hand,
full of impetuosity and ardor, was arousing his men, animating them by
his words of encouragement and by the influence of his example, and
making, as energetically as possible, all the preparations necessary