Note 50 — Chapter VI · THE HEBREW MORAL DEVELOPMENT

The general function of punishment as bringing home to the individual the consciousness of guilt and thus awakening the action of conscience, has an illustration in Shakespere's conception of the prayer of Henry Vth before the battle of Agincourt. In ordinary life the bluff King Harry devotes little time to meditation upon his own sin or that of his father, but on the eve of possible calamity the old crime rises fresh before him. Stimulated by the thought of an actual penalty to be imposed by a recognized authority, he cried: "Not to-day, O Lord! Oh, not to-day! Think not upon the fault my father made in compassing the crown."