Adultery, which in our _Flowery Land_ is punished by death, is not so much as a crime among the English Barbarians. And, as it is the chief cause for which the bond of marriage may be wholly severed, one may judge whether the Court do not encourage the immorality. For when parties wish to live apart, here is a way to secure it, lying directly in the path of desire and opportunity. Then, too, the _seduction_ of a maiden, which with us may be punished even to death, receives no sort of reprobation in the Court, and scarcely in Society. If the ruined girl be of low caste, her relatives feel no disgrace if the seducer be a High-Caste--rather an honour; receive from him some paltry sum (not so much as he lavishes upon some favourite dogs), and buy with the money a husband for her from her own Caste! With us a guilty _intrigue_ is almost unknown; with the Barbarians it is almost a pursuit. None the less, there is too much vigour in the organism; too much moral, intellectual, and physical strength, to suffer total decay. As is always the case, where the mind is active, even Idolatry itself has intermixed a pure morality, and the Barbarian nature, still unformed, untrained; still rude and stirred by passion and by force; wrestles with the divine _instinct_, and, unconsciously, often moulds to its light. Away from the glitter and _sham_ (sometimes _in it_, but not of it), there are quiet families which live lives of honour. The father works honestly and cheerfully; the wife, in her house, finds the beginning and end of her aims, of her love, and her duty. The husband-father is head; on him rests all responsibility, and to him belong _obedience_. This is not exacted; it is not questioned. It is founded in love and respect; love and loving obedience spontaneously arising from uncorrupted natures. _His_ whole being responds with unmeasured joy. Whatever is pure, high, tender; all are for these--his wife, his family; so true, so trusting, so helpful, so delightful. He feels no hardship; there can be no sacrifice, for these; all that is done is in harmony with himself. _Everywhere_ he is in accord. The very ills and misfortunes of life touch him not, for he is living in the _divine order_. And from such a man, the inside-life being serene, outer ills fall away. He is so clear and simple; so _whole_ that nature smiles for him, even in pain and sorrow; he lives in the presence and calm of the Sovereign Lord. These families are the _Salt_ which saves. Among the Barbarians they are generally obscure, and as wholly unconscious of the service which they render as are the glittering inanities which ignore them. This should be reversed, and the _Inanities_ sink into obscurity.