punishment of exposition.1 A law of the Spanish Visigoths, in the seventh century, punished infanticide and abortion with death or blindness.2 In the Capitularies of Charlemagne the former crime was punished as homicide.3 It is not possible to ascertain, with any degree of accuracy what diminution of infanticide resulted from these measures. It may, however, be safely asserted that the publicity of the trade in exposed children became impossible under the influence of Christianity, and that the sense of the serious nature of the crime was very considerably increased. The extreme destitution, which was one of its most fertile causes, was met by Christian charity. Many exposed children appear to have been educated by individual Christians. Brephotrophia and Orphanotrophia are among the earliest recorded charitable institutions of the Church; but it is not certain that exposed children were admitted into them, and we find no trace for several centuries of Christian foundling hospitals. This form of charity grew up gradually in the early part of the middle ages. It is said that one existed at Treves in the sixth, and at Angers in the seventh century, and it. is certain that one existed at Milan in the eighth century.5 The Council of Rouen, in the ninth century, invited women who had secretly borne children to place them at the door of the church, and undertook to provide for them if they 1 Corp. Juris, lib. viii. tit. 52, lex 2. 2 Leges Wisigothorum (lib. vi. tit. 3, lex 7) and other laws (lib. iv. tit. 4) condemned exposition. 3 Si quis infantem necaverit ut homicida teneatur.'-Capit. vii. 168. 4 It appears from a passage of St. Augustine, that Christian virgins were accustomed to collect exposed children and to have them brought into the church. See Terme et Monfalcon, Hist. des Enfans trouvés, p. 74. 5 Compare Labourt, Rech. sur les Enfans trouvés, pp. 32-33; Muratori, Antichità Italiane, Dissert. xxxvii. Muratori has also briefly noticed the history of these charities in his Carità Christiana, cap. xxvii. were not reclaimed. It is probable that they were brought up among the numerous slaves or serfs attached to the ecclesiastical properties, for a decree of the Council of Arles, in the fifth century, and afterwards a law of Charlemagne, had echoed the enactment of Constantine, declaring that exposed children should be the slaves of their protectors. As slavery declined, the memorials of many sins, like many other of the discordant elements of mediæval society, were doubtless absorbed and consecrated in the monastic societies. The strong sense always evinced in the Church of the enormity of unchastity probably rendered the ecclesiastics more cautious in this than in other forms of charity, for institutions especially intended for deserted children advanced but slowly. Even Rome, the mother of many charities, could boast of none till the beginning of the thirteenth century.1 About the middle of the twelfth century we find societies at Milan charged, among other functions, with seeking for exposed children. Towards the close of the same century, a monk of Montpellier, whose very name is doubtful, but who is commonly spoken of as Brother Guy, founded a confraternity called by the name of the Holy Ghost, and devoted to the protection and education of children; and this society in the two following centuries ramified over a great part of Europe." Though principally, and at first, 1 The first seems to have been that of Sta. Maria in Sassia-a hospital which had existed with various changes from the eighth century, but which was made a foundling hospital and confided to the care of Guy of Montpellier in A.D. 1204. According to one tradition, Pope Innocent III. had been shocked at hearing of infants drawn in the nets of fishermen from the Tiber. According to another, he was inspired by an angel. Compare Remacle, Hospices d'Enfans trouvés, pp. 36-37, and Amydenus, Pietas Romana (a book written A.D. 1624, and translated in part into English in A.D. 1687), Eng. trans. pp. 2-3. 2 For the little that is known about this missionary of charity, compare Remacle, Hospices d'Enfans trouvés, pp. 34-44, and Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les Enfans trouvés, pp. 38-41. L perhaps, exclusively intended for the care of the orphans of legitimate marriages, though in the fifteenth century the Hospital of the Holy Ghost at Paris even refused to admit deserted children, yet the care of foundlings soon passed in a great measure into its hands. At last, after many complaints of the frequency of infanticide, St. Vincent de Paul arose, and gave so great an impulse to that branch of charity, that he may be regarded as its second author, and his influence was felt not only in private charities, but in legislative enactments. Into the effects of these measures--the encouragement of the vice of incontinence by institutions that were designed to suppress the crime of infanticide, and the serious moral controversies suggested by this apparent conflict between the interests of humanity and of chastity-it is not necessary for me to enter. We are at present concerned with the principles that actuated, not with the wisdom of the organisations, of Christian charity. Whatever mistakes may have been made, the entire movement I have traced displays an anxiety not only for the life, but also for the moral wellbeing of the castaways of society, such as the most humane nations of antiquity had never reached. This minute and scrupulous care for human life and human virtue in the humblest forms, in the slave, the gladiator, the savage, or the infant, was indeed wholly foreign to the genius of Paganism. It was produced by the Christian doctrine of the inestimable value of each immortal soul. It is the distinguishing and transcendent characteristic of every society into which the spirit of Christianity has passed. The influence of Christianity in the protection of infantlife, though very real, may be, and I think often has been, exaggerated. It would be difficult to overrate its influence in the sphere we have next to examine. There is scarcely any other single reform so important in the moral history of mankind as the suppression of the gladiatorial shows, and this feat must be almost exclusively ascribed to the Christian Church. When we remember how extremely few of the best and greatest men of the Roman world had absolutely condemned the games of the amphitheatre, it is impossible to regard, without the deepest admiration, the unwavering and uncompromising consistency of the patristic denunciations. And even comparing the Fathers with the most enlightened Pagan moralists in their treatment of this matter, we shall usually find one most significant difference. The Pagan, in the spirit of philosophy, denounced these games as inhuman, or demoralising, or degrading, or brutal. The Christian, in the spirit of the Church, represented them as a definite sin, the sin of murder, for which the spectators as well as the actors were directly responsible before Heaven. In the very latest days of the Pagan Empire, magnificent amphitheatres were still arising,1 and Constantine himself had condemned numerous barbarian captives to combat with wild beasts. It was in A.D. 365, immediately after the convocation of the Council of Nice, that the first Christian emperor issued the first edict in the Roman Empire condemnatory of the gladiatorial games. It was issued in Berytus in Syria, and is believed by some to have been only applicable to the province of Phoenicia ;1 but even in this province it was suffered to be inoperative, for, only four years later, Libanius speaks of the 1E.g. the amphitheatre of Verona was only built under Diocletian. 2 'Quid hoc triumpho pulchrius?... Tantam captivorum multitudinem bestiis objicit ut ingrati et perfidi non minus doloris ex ludibrio sui quam ex ipsa morte patiantur.'-Incerti Panegyricus Constant. 'Puberes qui in manus venerunt, quorum nec perfidia erat apta militiæ, nec ferocia servituti ad pœnas spectaculo dati sævientes bestias multitudine sua fatigarunt.'— Eumenius, Paneg. Constant. xi. 3 Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 12, lex 1. Sozomen, i. 8. ✦ This, at least, is the opinion of Godefroy, who has discussed the subject very fully. (Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 12.) shows as habitually celebrated at Antioch.1 In the Western Empire their continuance was fully recognised, though a few infinitesimal restrictions were imposed upon them. Constantine, in A.D. 357, forbade the lanistæ, or purveyors of gladiators, bribing servants of the palace to enroll themselves as combatants.2 Valentinian, in A.D. 365, forbade any Christian criminal,3 and in A.D. 367, anyone connected with the Palatine, being condemned to fight. Honorius prohibited any slave who had been a gladiator passing into the service of a senator; but the real object of this last measure was, I imagine, not so much to stigmatise the gladiator, as to guard against the danger of an armed nobility. A much more important fact is, that the spectacles were never introduced into the new capital of Constantine. At Rome, though they became less numerous, they do not appear to have been suspended until their final suppression. The passion for gladiators was the worst, while religious liberty was probably the best feature of the old Pagan society; and it is a melancholy fact, that of these two it was the nobler part that in the Christian Empire was first destroyed. Theodosius the Great, who suppressed all diversity of worship throughout the empire, and who showed himself on many occasions the docile slave of the clergy, won the applause of the Pagan Symmachus by compelling his barbarian prisoners to fight as gladiators.6 Besides this occasion, we have special knowledge of gladiatorial games that were celebrated in A.D. 385, in A.D. 391, and afterwards in the reign of Honorius, and the practice of condemning criminals to the arena still continued.7 Libanius, De Vita Sua, 3. 3 Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 40, 1. 8. 5 Ibid. lib. xv. tit. 12, 1. 3. M. Wallon has traced these last de l'Esclavage, tome iii. pp. 421-429.) 6 2 Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 12, 1. 2. 4 Ibid. lib. ix. tit. 40, 1. 11. shows with much learning. (Hist. |