The psalm joins the very virtues the paragraph separates
make righteousness and peace kiss each other
The wording adapts Psalm 85:10 in the King James Version: ‘Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.’ The first half of the verse matters as much as the borrowed second half: the psalm already brings together the mercy and truth that Chesterton's humanitarian and scientist have pulled apart. KJV, Psalm 85:7–13, Gutenberg #10.
The corresponding verse is Psalm 84:11 in the inspected Douay-Rheims text (Gutenberg #8300), which uses justice for righteousness. The difference in wording and numbering should not be treated as a different biblical passage. Douay-Rheims, Psalm 84:8–14. Chesterton changes the accomplished meeting into something a historical religious system could effect only ‘to some extent’, then reduces the kiss to the modern failure even to bow. That comic social gesture recasts a scriptural image of reconciliation as an argument about the coordination of virtues. The psalm supplies the image, not historical evidence for his assessment of Torquemada's society.
Sources
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