You would find, were such a book published to-day and brought up to the present time by any shrewd writer, that Western morality has not improved in the least since the time before Christianity was established, so far as the rules of society go.

Society is not, and can not be, religious, because it is a state of continual warfare.

Every person in it has to fight, and the battle is not less cruel now because it is not fought with swords.

Indeed, I should think that the time when every man carried his sword in society was a time when men were quite as kindly and much more honest than they are now.

The object of this little lecture was to show you that the principles of the ancient Norse are really the principles ruling English society to-day; but I think you will be able to take from it a still larger meaning.