Now the method of Christianity is exactly the reverse of this. Its appeal is made to the individual; it does not concern itself directly with social and industrial systems, or with governmental institutions and arrangements. It would reform society by reforming the individual. When Christianity entered the world Cæsarism had just established itself upon the ruins of republican and national freedom, but the Christian preachers said nothing about political liberty; the Master had said, “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.” The war system was in full vigor; after a period of Quakerism the Church first condoned, then accepted, and finally consecrated this heritage of barbarism as one of the necessary institutions of human society. The gladiatorial games were the sole important institution of antiquity which the Christian teachers absolutely condemned as an institution, and the abolition of which they persistently demanded and finally effected. It was the same with slavery as with other social institutions. It existed everywhere when Christianity appeared, but the Christian teachers never preached abolition. The Christian emperors adopted, and for two centuries maintained practically unchanged, the pagan slave code. There were under these rulers, it is true, some ameliorations in the laws, due to Christian influence; thus cruel forms of punishment, as branding on the forehead or throwing from a precipice, were prohibited. With the exception of these minor isolated mitigations of the lot of the slave, slavery passed over into Christian civilization as an unchanged heritage from the ancient world, and continued to exist as a Christian institution until, through the action of various agencies, political and economic as well as moral, it was gradually transformed into serfdom. During the later centuries of its prevalence, however, Christian teachings softened many of the cruelties of the system, and caused, speaking generally, the individual slave to be treated with greater consideration and humanity. [Sidenote: The broadening moral movement in progress in the ancient world is checked]