The voice of New England was echoed from Pennsylvania. The Mennonites of Germantown, in 1688, framed in quaint and touching language their petition for the abolition of slavery, and the Quaker yearly meetings responded one to another with unanimous protest. But the mischief grew and grew. In the Northern colonies the growth was stunted by the climate. Elsewhere the institution, beginning with the domestic service of a few bondmen attached to their masters' families, took on a new type of malignity as it expanded. In proportion as the servile population increases to such numbers as to be formidable, laws of increasing severity are directed to restraining or repressing it. The first symptoms of insurrection are followed by horrors of bloody vengeance, and "from that time forth the slave laws have but one quality--that of ferocity engendered by fear."[153:1] It was not from the willful inhumanity of the Southern colonies, but from their terrors, that those slave codes came forth which for nearly two centuries were the shame of America and the scandal of Christendom. It is a comfort to the heart of humanity to reflect that the people were better than their laws; it was only at the recurring periods of fear of insurrection that they were worse. In ordinary times human sympathy and Christian principle softened the rigors of the situation. The first practical fruits of the revival of religion in the Southern colonies were seen in efforts of Christian kindness toward the souls and bodies of the slaves. FOOTNOTES: [129:1] One is touched by the plaintive grief of the Rev. Mr. Muirson, who has come from the established church of England to make proselytes from the established churches of Connecticut. He writes to the "S. P. G.," without a thought of casting any reflections upon his patrons: "It would require more time than you would willingly bestow on these Lines, to express how rigidly and severely they treat our People, by taking their Estate by distress when they do not willingly pay to support their Ministers" ("Digest of S. P. G. Records," p. 43). The pathos of the situation is intensified when we bear in mind the relation of this tender-hearted gentleman's own emoluments to the taxes extorted from the Congregationalists in his New York parish. [130:1] See above, p. 107. [131:1] Newman, "Baptist Churches in the United States," pp. 197, 198, 231. [131:2] Tiffany, "Protestant Episcopal Church," chaps, iv., v.; C. F. Adams, "Three Episodes in Massachusetts History," pp. 342, 621. [133:1] "Digest of S. P. G.," p. 42. [134:1] Tiffany, chap. v. For a full account of these beginnings in Connecticut in their historical relations, see L. Bacon on "The Episcopal Church in Connecticut" ("New Englander," vol. xxv., pp. 283-329).