Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/80

60 the Anglo-Saxon people, it was yet more closely united by bonds of blood among the Danes; if freedom had been the watchword of the first comers, intensely free was the existence of the liberty loving Scandinavian; if devotion to Woden insisted on human sacrifice under the old régime, yet more persistently bloodthirsty were the pagan hordes of the ninth century.

But the inhuman and pitiless brutality of the age was now illumined for ever by the radiance of that light shed over England by her newly found Christianity, under whose startling régime Vengeance gave way to Forgiveness, Cruelty to Mercy, Pride to Humility, and the love of Family life to the larger Brotherhood which the dust of ages has proved powerless to dim, and the centuries, as they roll onward, have strengthened with indestructible unity.