Among Christian nations she is no longer, like the wretched inmate of the seraglio, doomed to subserve the base passions of a pampered master. Christianity seems to say to the sex generally, what our Lord did to one afflicted with bodily distemper, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." 6. Again, the cruelties of domestic slavery no longer pursue with their curse the great bulk of mankind. It cannot now be said of any Christian state, as it was of Attica, that out of 450,000 inhabitants, only 40,000 are free. Our citizens no longer possess ten or twenty thousand slaves, tilling their grounds in chains. The master of a family no longer buys and sells his servants like cattle, nor punishes and tortures them as he pleases, nor puts them to death with or without reason. Youths of condition no longer venture forth to murder their unhappy fellow creatures for amusement, by thousands at a time. A Claudius no longer gluts his lakes with dying gladiators, nor does a Tacitus record the deed with admiration. A Vedius Pollio no longer throws his servants, on the most trifling fault, into his fish-ponds, to feed his lampreys; nor, upon a master of a household being found dead, are all his servants, as formerly, amounting sometimes to thousands, put to death. One foul blot, indeed, upon the Christian nations remains, the cruel traffic in African slaves-a blot which this country, thank God, has wiped off; and which most of the other countries of Europe have professedly abandoned—and which they will effectually and totally renounce, in proportion as Christian principles prevail. We have still, as Englishmen, to follow up the act of national righteousness which we performed in abolishing the trade, by immediate and vigorous measures for ameliorating the condition, and providing for the earliest possible emancipation, of the descendants of the injured Africans, in order to vindicate in this respect our holy faith.* 7. Private assassination is another of the monstrous fiends which the true religion has put to flight. The guardian mixes not now the deadly cup for the unhappy orphan, whose large property has been intrusted to his management. The hus-. band no longer poisons the wife for her dowry, nor the wife her husband, that she may marry the adulterer. A Christian It is impossible not to lament at the practice prevailing in some of the United States of America, of trading in slaves, in the very teeth of their own free institutions, and their jealous attachment to political liberty. magistrate has no longer to punish capitally, for this one crime, three thousand persons during part of a season, as was the case with a Roman prætor in Italy. But I cannot dwell on all the evils banished by the doctrine of Christ.-The unlimited power of parents, extending to the liberty, and even life of their children-the vindication and defence of suicide-piracy-public indecencies between the sexes-the incests, and unnatural crimes, which polluted the philosopher and statesman of old, and which the poet did not fear to descant upon with the utmost indifference, and connect, forsooth, with moral reflections upon the brevity of life are all gone.* * These, and a thousand similar evils, have been banished from Christian states, and banished by the Christian doctrine. For that we owe their expulsion to this cause is manifest, because it was Christianity that first raised her voice against them; it was she that first prohibited them to her disciples; whilst all the wisest men of the heathen world, at the period of greatest refinement and highest intellectual cultivation, justified, connived at, and practised them. It was, moreover, by Christian emperors that the first public enactments against them were framed. Constantine, upon his conversion to the Christian faith, to stop the crime of infanticide, ordained that the public should maintain the children of those parents who were unable to provide for them. In A. D. 319, he made it a capital offence to expose infants. He promulgated also the first edict against gladiatorial shows; and discouraged perpetual servitude, which was gradually lessened, till at length it was entirely banished from Christian states. The Christian religion, indeed, preserved the Roman empire from that sudden destruction which her vices threatened; it infused into her government and people a new virtue and life; and though the whole mass of the state was too far corrupted to be recovered, it broke the rapidity and violence of its fall. * Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Nec tenerum Lycidam mirabere, quo calet juventus, The favorite notion of infidelity, that improvements in morals and virtue are chiefly owing to the progress of civilization, is contrary to the experience of all ages of the world-Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, India, testify against such an assumption. Civilization, except as accompanied, and animated, and directed by Christianity, has uniformly corrupted and deteriorated public morals. But this leads us to notice, III. That Christianity has promoted the welfare of states, by MITIGATING MANY EVILS which she has not yet entirely removed; she protests against them, and raises up the barrier of public opinion against their progress. The Christian revelation is a religion, not a mere code of laws. It can, therefore, only reach public institutions and usages through private character. To get rid of these usages, the reigning part of the community must act, and act in concert. Where, however, Christianity is not sufficiently obeyed to eradicate national evils altogether and at once, it begins by mitigating and abating them. 1. The horrors of war, before the coming of Christ, were inconceivable. Ambition, the love of conquest, revenge, were openly professed as its object. "To glut our souls with the cruellest vengeance upon our enemies, is perfectly lawful, is an appetite implanted in us by nature, and is the most exquisite pleasure that the human mind can taste," is the language of Gylippus, speaking of an invading army, as recorded by the great historian Thucydides.* "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath," is the command of our divine Master-and which would have long since extinguished war, and established universal peace and tranquillity, had it been duly obeyed. It has, however, actually been softening the cruelties of national conflicts for eighteen hundred years. We do not now begin our wars openly for interest, aggression, the acquisition of territory. We do not murder every human creature in a besieged place, as of old. The loss of thousands in the field is not the prelude to the desolation of a whole country, to indiscriminate massacre, and utter extermination. The first symptoms of the mitigation of the horrors of war appeared in the fifth century, when Rome was stormed and plundered by the Goths under Alaric. Those rude soldiers were Christians, and their conduct, in the hour of conquest, exhibited a new and wonderful example of the power of Christianity over the fierce passions of man. Alaric no sooner found himself master of the city, than he gave orders that all the unarmed inhabitants who had fled to the churches, or to the sepulchres of the martyrs, should be spared. This, you will observe, was an instance of mercy and moderation in a Thucyd. 1. vii. 540. ed. Frank. whole army, in common soldiers, flushed with victory, and smarting under the wounds they had received in obtaining it. Even Gibbon acknowledges that "the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect effects, on the barbarian proselytes of the north. On the fall of the Roman empire, it evidently mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors." May we not add, that in a much later period, when the fierceness of a successful, but most unprincipled usurper, had brought back as much of the ancient atrocities of war, as the spirit of the times would allow, the moderation of the allied army, on the taking of Paris, was a somewhat similar illustration of the influence of Christianity? Indeed, from the days of Alaric to the present, the cruelty of war has declined; till now, not only are captives among Christians treated with humanity, and conquered provinces governed with equity, but in the actual prosecution of a war, it is become a maxim to abstain from all unnecessary violence. Wanton depredations are rarely committed upon private property, and the individual is screened as much as possible from the evil of the public quarrel. To spare the effusion of blood has come to be accounted the highest exercise of military skill. The greatest captains of our age are as much famed for humanity to the vanquished, and compassion to their wounded men, as for conduct and valor in the field.* 2. Again, the spirit of faction and of party animosities in states, is far less bitter and permanent, and breaks out into much less violent excesses, than in the times of the Greeks and Romans. It is now mollified by the intercourse of private society, and overborne by a regard to the interests of the nation and does not lead to outrage, treachery, assassination and private war. 3. All the vices which most fatally sap the foundations of public tranquillity are mitigated. Venality and corruption in ministers of state, and judges, and high political functionaries, are almost unknown throughout Christendom. Acts of oppression against the voice of law are now generally reprobated. Gross breaches of public trust are infrequent. Vice has less * The treatment of persons imprisoned for civil offences is also so softened, as to be a totally different thing from what it was in heathen governments. The philanthropy of such individuals as Howard and Fry-the latter a female of the most retired of the Christian sectscasts a strong light on the character of the beneficent religion by which they have been and are actuated. of a malignant and destructive character than it had before the mild doctrine of Christianity appeared. 4. Again, as to offences against temperance and chastity, Christianity has brought us to a far purer state than the heathen world. The worst excesses of modern voluptuaries would seem sanctity and continence compared with those unnatural debaucheries of the pagans, which were so habitual in their manners, that they stained the lives of their gravest philosophers, and made a part even of the religious rites of the politest nations.* 5. In short, Christianity raises the standard of public opinion as to morals and religion, protests boldly against every vice, and erects certain common barriers, as it were, of order and decency, over which few dare to press. The grosser vices are shamed and covered with confusion; as rape, adultery, incest, offences against nature; and, in a degree, drunkenness, theft, fraud and profane swearing. No man can be in reputation who commits these crimes. The highest stations in the community cannot shield men from the infamy of them. Public confidence can be fully acquired only by private virtue. Thus Christianity benefits mankind, not only by banishing an immense mass of evil altogether, but by restraining, curbing, mitigating what it has not yet cured. It makes men better in spite of themselves, it works upon them by a regard to reputation and the fear of shame, where it has no footing in their hearts to gain a direct influence. What, we may ask, would individuals and nations be without the Christian religion, inadequately as too many of them are influenced by the true spirit of her laws? Thousands are kept in order by Christianity, who are not Christians. They are insensibly guided by the rectitude which the New Testament communicates to public opinion.t "All that is bad about the Hindoos appears to arise either from the defective motives which their religion supplies, or the wicked actions which it records of their gods, or encourages in their own practice. Yet it is strange to see, though this is pretty generally allowed, how slow men are to admit the advantage or necessity of propagating Christianity among them. CRIMES UNCONNECTED WITH RELIGION ARE NOT COMMON in Ghazeepoor."-Bishop Heber, i. 270. + Bolingbroke acknowledges the advantages of Christianity to the first Christian state. He says, "that Constantine acted the part of a sound politician in protecting Christianity, as it tended to give firmness and solidity to his empire, softened the ferocity of the army, and |