than they are among
their neighbouring nations, as you may imagine by that which I think
gives occasion for it.

"When the Utopians engage in battle, the priests who accompany them to
the war, apparelled in their sacred vestments, kneel down during the
action (in a place not far from the field), and, lifting up their hands
to heaven, pray, first for peace, and then for victory to their own side,
and particularly that it may be gained without the effusion of much blood
on either side; and when the victory turns to their side, they run in
among their own men to restrain their fury; and if any of their enemies
see them or call to them, they are preserved by that means; and such as
can come so near them as to touch their garments have not only their
lives, but their fortunes secured to them; it is upon this account that
all the nations round about consider them so much, and treat them with
such reverence, that they have been often no less able to preserve their
own people from the fury of their enemies than to save their enemies from
their rage; for it has sometimes fallen out, that when their armies have
been in disorder and forced to fly, so that their enemies were running
upon the slaughter and spoil, the priests by interposing have separated
them from one another, and stopped the effusion of more blood; so that,
by their mediation, a peace has been concluded on very reasonable terms;
nor is there any nation about them so fierce, cruel, or barbarous, as not
to look upon their persons as sacred and inviolable.

"The first and the last day of the month, and of the year, is a festival;
they measure their months by the course of the moon, and their years by
the course of the sun: the first days are called in their language the
Cynemernes, and the last the Trapemernes, which answers in our language,
to the festival that begins or ends the season.

"They have magnificent temples, that are not only nobly built, but
extremely spacious, which is the more necessary as they have so few of
them; they are a little dark within, which proceeds not from any error in
the architecture, but is done with design; for their priests think that
too much light dissipates the thoughts, and that a more moderate degree
of it both recollects the mind and raises devotion. Though there are
many different forms of religion among them, yet all these, how various
soever, agree in the main point, which is the worshipping the Divine
Essence; and, there