The Thirty Years' War - James Aitken Wylie

with a green wreath, varied with yellow flowers,
and holding in its hand a branch of olive. In front
of the men was a symbolical representation of
Justice, clothed in white, wearing a green wreath,
and holding in one hand a naked sword, and in the
other a yellow rod. The young men stood at some
distance, with a representation of Mars before
them, dressed as a soldier and carrying a crossbow.
In the middle of these groups stood the
scholars and villagers, with the pastor at their head,
the director of the day's proceedings, and
afterwards their narrator. The pastor directed their
glance back on the awful tempests which had beat
upon them, now happily ended. He told them how
often they had had to flee from their homes, fear in
their hearts and tears in their eyes; and how glad
they were, the storm over, to return, though to enter
naked and devastated dwellings, and sit at hearths
blackened and cold. "And now let us," he said,
"pass in with praise at these same gates, out of
which we have often passed in flight; and let us
enter the sanctuary of the Eternal with a psalm of
thanksgiving, and lifting up our voices with one
accord, sing to God on high." Thereupon the whole
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