to become a gladiator, and to imbrue his hands in the blood of his fellow-captive for the sport of a thoughtless multitude.  The stern priest, cruel through fanaticism and custom, no longer leads his fellow-creature to the altar, to sacrifice him to fictitious Gods.  The venerable martyr, courageous through faith and the sanctity of his life, is no longer hurried to the flames.  The haggard witch, poring over her incantations by moon-light, no longer scatters her superstitious poison among her miserable neighbours, nor suffers for her crime.

But in whatever way Christianity may have operated towards the increase of this energy, or towards a diminution of human misery, it has operated in none more powerfully than by the new views, and consequent duties, which it introduced on the subject of charity, or practical benevolence and love.  Men in ancient times looked upon their talents, of whatever description, as their own, which they might use or cease to use at their discretion.  But the author of our religion was the first who taught that, however in a legal point of view the talent of individuals might belong exclusively to themselves, so that no other person had a right to demand the use of it by force, yet in the Christian dispensation they were but the stewards of it for good; that so much was expected from this stewardship, that it was difficult for those who were entrusted with it to enter into his spiritual kingdom; that these had no right to conceal their talent in a napkin; but that they were bound to dispense a portion of it to the relief of their fellow-creatures; and that in proportion to the magnitude of it they were accountable for the extensiveness of its use.  He was the first, who pronounced the misapplication of it to be a crime, and to be a crime of no ordinary dimension.  He was the first who broke down the boundary between Jew and Gentile, and therefore the first, who pointed out to men the inhabitants of other countries for the exercise of their philanthropy and love.  Hence a distinction is to be made both in the principle and practice of charity, as existing in ancient or in modern times.  Though the old philosophers, historians, and poets, frequently inculcated benevolence, we have no reason to conclude from any facts they have left us, that persons in their days did any thing more than occasionally relieve an unfortunate object, who might present himself before them, or that, however they might deplore the existence of public evils among them, they joined in associations for their suppression, or that they carried their charity, as bodies of men, into other kingdoms.  To Christianity alone we are indebted for the new and sublime spectacle of seeing men going beyond the bounds of individual usefulness to each other—­of seeing them associate for the extirpation of private and public misery—­and of seeing them carry their charity, as a united brotherhood, into distant lands.  And in this wider field of benevolence it would be unjust not to confess, that no country has shone with more true lustre than our own, there being scarcely any case of acknowledged affliction for which some of her Christian children have not united in an attempt to provide relief.