[176]
But for the retention of this belief there was a moral cause.
Myriads of good men in the Christian Church down to a recent period
saw in the appearance of comets not merely an exhibition of "signs
in the heavens" foretold in Scripture, but also Divine warnings of
vast value to humanity as incentives to repentance and improvement
of life-warnings, indeed, so precious that they could not be spared
without danger to the moral government of the world. And this
belief in the portentous character of comets as an essential part
of the Divine government, being, as it was thought, in full accord
with Scripture, was made for centuries a source of terror to
humanity. To say nothing of examples in the earlier periods, comets
in the tenth century especially increased the distress of all
Europe. In the middle of the eleventh century a comet was thought
to accompany the death of Edward the Confessor and to presage the
Norman conquest; the traveller in France to-day may see this
belief as it was then wrought into the Bayeux tapestry.
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