ing of them to the caprice and ferocity of the conqueror, either chained to his triumphal car, or trained to slaughter as gladiators, or subjected to domestic or agricultural slavery ;-all these are now done away. In the most embittered hostility, among Christians at least, we find that as soon as the conflict is past, and victory decided, the causes of enmity are forgotten, and charity and mutual kindness are restored. Of the wretched lot of Gladiators we can now only learn from history. Exclusive of the numbers of these wretched beings in the provincial cities and towns, there were myriads of them in chains and confinement in Rome ;-reserved, like untamed and savage animals, for public spectacles ;-destined to be destroyed or mangled by wild beasts, or by each other;-and condemned to be the objects of shows and exhibitions, calculated to increase the natural ferocity and depravity of fallen man. This evil has long ceased to exist. When Christianity obtained the ascendency in the civilized world, the emperor Constantine prohibited this outrage on human nature; and though partially renewed by his successors, the shews of Gladiators were entirely and finally suppressed by his Christian successor, Honorius. As to the number and condition of Slaves among the heathens:if, without noticing the history of the Helots at Sparta, or the still more painful examples in some of the savage countries and ages of antiquity, we refer to the Roman empire at the time of the birth of our Saviour, in the most enlightened and civilized period of the Pagan world, we shall find that, of their prisoners of war, the aged and infirm were involved in indiscriminate massacre, and the younger subjected to every species of barbarity and lust; or perhaps reserved, first to grace the victor's triumph, and then to perish in misery or in torture. If we trace the condition of those who survived, and from captives became slaves, we shall find them devoted to unceasing and unqualified labour, without religious restraint or legal protection. As to the number of those who were condemned to severe labour and daily scourging, we read that four thousand slaves were no unusual property for a Roman citizen of moderate fortune and that the opulent possessed much more numerous herds of their fellow creatures; there being severai Roman citizens, who had above twenty thousand slaves. In the two servile wars in Sicily, when even their own historians do not pretend that the Romans had any justice on their side, it appears that above a million of slaves were destroyed; and we shall probably on enquiry admit the correctness of Mr. Gibbon's calculation, who supposes that there were sixty millions of Roman slaves in the time of the Emperor Claudius. Torture was once the ordinary and familiar mode of extracting evidence. In the Roman empire all persons were subjected to it, a few privileged citizens excepted. Torture is now entirely abolished in every Christian state: and little more than the traditional memory of its horrors does now remain in any part of the civilized world. In criminal proceedings, the accused, no longer subjected to prejudice before judgment and to cruelty afterwards, is treated, in England at least, and in other countries where the reformed Religion of Christ is recognised, with a degree of mercy and tenderness, which has appeared in some instances even to pass the bounds of political wisdom; particularly where the kindness and compassion shewn to an atrocious criminal has a tendency to lessen the abhorrence of his guilt, and to diminish the effect of his punishment. To these examples may be added the practice of exposing or murdering newborn children. The extent to which this unnatural practice prevailed, and the familiarity with which it was talked of, will scarcely be conceived in our happier times. It was Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who made the first legal provision for the protection and preservation of these helpless infants; and this humane edict may be therefore regarded as the first triumph of Christianity over the barbarities of Paganism -while, on the other hand, this savage practice was so universally prevalent among all the most polished nations in the Pagan world, that Mr. Gibbon, though avowedly favourable to the Religion and manners of the ancients, confesses that it was the incorrigible vice of all antiquity:-and again, we learn that in the immense empire of China (almost the only country in modern times which, without any acquaintance with Christianity, has risen to any great height of civilization) the same practice has long prevailed, and at this day subsists under its most horrid forms. Must we not then be forced to acknowledge by principles of fair reasoning, as well as of pious gratitude, that it is to Christianity that we owe our exemption from this scandal of human nature. It is not, however, the mere abstinence from injury and cruelty to our fellow creatures, and from the aggravation of the miseries of mankind, but it is active and unwearied labour for the benefit of others which characterises our pure and undefiled Religion. That Charity originated in Christianity, and was first practised by the Christians, appears by the testimony of Julian, their malignant and inveterate enemy: Christian charity, as it has been emphatically called, was first enforced by the Divine Author of our Religion, and was till then, a novelty in the world. By its influence, the mitigation of the sorrows and calamities of life has been reduced and arranged into a system, which excludes interest, power, and sensuality; and directs the earnest exertions of the individual to the benefit of those with whom he has no other connexion than that of man with man. The co-operation of individuals for the relief of the misery, and for the increase of the happiness of their fellowcreatures, has not only been extended to every class of society, and even to the animal creation; but it has been applied, by a variety of charitable institutions, to every thing in which the interest of man can be concerned. By these fruits of genuine Christianity the character of the reformed Church is best known, and the evidence of its intrinsic purity most completely established. From these facts it may be inferred that no plan for the improve ment of the condition of the poor will be of any avail, or in any 1 respect competent to its object, unless the foundation be laid in the melioration of their moral and religious character. The seeds of evil must be eradicated before the soil can be enriched to advantage, and prepared to produce the abundant and acceptable harvest. This is essential to the improvement of the condition of the poor: without it, the increase of means of subsistence to the labouring class, and even industry itself, will often administer a supply to vice rather than a relief to necessity. Artizans may be industrious and ingenious, and at the same time profligate, immoral, and worthless, in all the relations of life. Their profits may be doubled, or even trebled, and we have numberless instances in our manufacturing countries, and yet there may be no increase of the comforts which the artizan and his family enjoy the frequent consequences of excessive profits being the periodical return of idleness and inebriation, suspended only by the necessity which goads him back to his labour. My second fundamental axiom is; that no project respecting the poor can be admissible, if it tends to alienate him from his cottage, and his domestic attachments. There is no principle of action more deeply engrafted in the human heart, not even the preserving instinct of self-love, than that affection which unites the poor man to his cottage and family. They are endeared to him amid the snows of Nova Zembla, and the burning sands of the equator;-in the noxious marsh, and upon the sterile mountain. Incessant labour and scanty food are submitted to, so long as the mere wants of nature can be supplied, and life preserved. The cottager, unused to change of place or condition, centres all his desires in the spot where he was born, and in the family to which he has given birth. Necessity may drive him, and extraneous circumstances may seduce him, to wander to other soils and to other climates; but the heart will be always tremblingly alive to the call which summons him back to his home and his family, and renews the sweetest sensations which we ever enjoy in this sublunary world. With this natural and instinctive sentiment impressed on his heart, I trust it will appear not only to be true policy to leave him in the undisturbed possession of his cottage and his family, and of that impulse which nature has given him for their support and protection; but that it is our first duty, and our nearest interest, to sweeten and encourage his toil, and to attach him to his condition and situation. This may be done by affording him the prospect of acquiring property; by supplying the means of education for his children, and of religious duty and consolation for himself and his family; and by giving him occasional aid and kind assistance, when age, infirmity, or any domestic calamity requires it. In this, however, and in every thing which may be done for the poor, we should be careful never to remove the spur, the motive, and the necessity of exertion. No charity which we can administer can ever compensate for our rendering them helpless and useless to themselves. Their own industry, prudence, and domestic habits, far exceed in intrinsic value MILLIONS which may be raised for their relief: and while they contribute to our national wealth and security, they all dispense comfort and happiness to those individuals and to those families which are blessed in their possession. But whatever may be done for the permanent well-being of the labouring class, the fabric of human prosperity will never be so firmly established, as for man not to want the aid and kindness of man. While castles and palaces remain subject to the instability of fortune, it is vain for the cottager to claim the exemption. It is in sudden visitations of sickness or other calamity, that benevolence should come forward, like the invisible hand of Providence, to sooth and sustain his sinking spirit. This is the moment that calls for personal charity, not only kindly administered, but liberally and sedulously bestowed; so as speedily to restore his labour and utility to his family and his country. THE TOMBS OF NELSON AND PITT. By Sir Walter Scott. [The Author, from whose poems the following is an extract, has attained a higher literary reputation than any living writer. An honourable distinction has just been conferred upon this distinguished poet by his Sovereign, in creating him a Baronet.] To mute and to material things New life revolving summer brings ; E'en on the meanest flower that blows: Where glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine; O never let those names depart! Short, bright, resistless course was given: Nor mourn ye less his perish'd worth, Who, when the frantic crowd amaina O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'de Shew'd to their zeal a worthier cause, And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws. Hadst thou but liv'd, though stripp'd of power, A watchman on a lonely tower, Thy thrilling trump had rous'd the land When fraud or danger were at hand; By thee, as by the beacon-light, Our pilots had kept course aright: Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne. Now is the stately column broke, The beacon light is quench'd in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still, The warder silent on the hill! Oh, think how to his latest day, ! When death, just hovering, claim'd his prey, |