of little value.  Of the New Testament there is very little equal to the Old in literary value; indeed, I should recommend the reading only of the closing book—­the book called the Revelation, or the Apocalypse, from which we have derived a literary adjective “apocalyptic,” to describe something at once very terrible and very grand.  Whether one understands the meaning of this mysterious text makes very little difference; the sonority and the beauty of its sentences, together with the tremendous character of its imagery, can not but powerfully influence mind and ear, and thus stimulate literary taste.  At least two of the great prose writers of the nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been vividly influenced by the book of the Revelation.  Every period of English literature shows some influence of Bible study, even from the old Anglo-Saxon days; and during the present year, the study has so little slackened that one constantly sees announcements of new works upon the literary elements of the Bible.  Perhaps one of the best is Professor Moulton’s “Modern Reader’s Bible,” in which the literary side of the subject receives better consideration than in any other work of the kind published for general use.

CHAPTER VII

The “Havamal”

OLD NORTHERN ETHICS OF LIFE

  Then from his lips in music rolled
  The Havamal of Odin old,
  With sounds mysterious as the roar
  Of billows on a distant shore.

Perhaps many of you who read this little verse in Longfellow’s “Saga of King Olaf” have wished to know what was this wonderful song that the ghost of the god sang to the king.  I am afraid that you would be very disappointed in some respects by the “Havamal.”  There is indeed a magical song in it; and it is this magical song especially that Longfellow refers to, a song of charms.  But most of the “Havamal” is a collection of ethical teaching.  All that has been preserved by it has been published and translated by Professors Vigfusson and Powell.  It is very old—­perhaps the oldest Northern literature that we have.  I am going to attempt a short lecture upon it, because it is very closely related to the subject of Northern character, and will help us, perhaps better than almost anything else, to understand how the ancestors of the English felt and thought before they became Christians.  Nor is this all.  I venture to say that the character of the modern English people still retains much more of the quality indicated by the “Havamal” than of the quality implied by Christianity.  The old Northern gods are not dead; they rule a very great part of the world to-day.

The proverbial philosophy of a people helps us to understand more about them than any other kind of literature.  And this sort of literature is certainly among the oldest.  It represents only the result of human experience in society, the wisdom that men get by contact with each other, the results of familiarity with right and wrong.  By studying the proverbs of a people, you can always make a very good guess as to whether you could live comfortably among them or not.