It has mitigated the conduct of war, and
the treatment of captives. It has softened the administration of
despotic, or of nominally despotic governments. It has abolished
polygamy. It has restrained the licentiousness of divorces. It has put
an end to the exposure of children and the immolation of slaves. It has
suppressed the combats of gladiators,* and the impurities of religions
rites. It has banished, if not unnatural vices, at least the toleration
of them. It has greatly meliorated the condition of the laborious part,
that is to say, of the mass of every community, by procuring for them a
day of weekly rest. In all countries in which it is professed it has
produced numerous establishments for the relief of sickness and poverty;
and in some, a regular and general provision by law. It has triumphed
over the slavery established in the Roman empire: it is contending, and
I trust will one day prevail, against the worse slavery of the West
Indies.
_________
* Lipsius affirms (Sat. b. i. c. 12) that the gladiatorial shows
sometimes cost Europe twenty or thirty thousand lives in a month; and
that not only the men, but even the women of all ranks were passionately
fond of these shows.
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