great philosopher and public benefactor. This is to cure the
headache by amputating the head. Now, the same principle of limitation
to population _a parte ante_, though not in the same savage excess as in
Mahometan Persia, operated upon Greece and Rome. The whole Pagan world
escaped the evils of a redundant population by vicious repressions of it
beforehand. But under Christianity a new state of things was destined to
take effect. Many protections and excitements to population were laid in
the framework of this new religion, which, by its new code of rules and
impulses, in so many ways extended the free-agency of human beings.
Manufacturing industry was destined first to arise on any great scale
under Christianity. Except in Tyre and Alexandria, (see the Emperor
Hadrian's account of this last,) there was no town or district in the
ancient world where the populace could be said properly to work. The
rural labourers worked a little--not much; and sailors worked a little;
nobody else worked at all. Even slaves had little more work distributed
amongst each ten than now settles upon one. And in many other ways, by
protecting the principle of life, as a mysterious sanctity, Christianity
has favoured the development of an excessive population. There it is
that Christianity, being answerable for the mischief, is answerable for
its redress. Therefore it is that, breeding the disease, Christianity
breeds the cure. Extending the vast lines of poverty, Christianity it
was that first laid down the principle of a relief for poverty.
Constantine, the first Christian potentate, laid the first stone of the
mighty overshadowing institution since reared in Christian lands to
poverty, disease, orphanage, and mutilation. Christian instincts, moving
and speaking through that Caesar, first carried out that great idea of
Christianity. Six years was Christianity in building Constantinople, and
in the seventh she rested from her labours, saying, "Henceforward let
the poor man have a haven of rest for ever; a rest from his work for one
day in seven; a rest from his anxieties by a legal and a fixed relief."
Being legal, it could not be open to disturbances of caprice in the
giver; being fixed, it was not open to disturbances of miscalculation in
the receiver. Now, first, when first Christianity was installed as a
public organ of government, (and first owned a distinct political
responsibility,) did it become the duty of a religion which assumed, as