Not until the star of Christianity rose above the horizon of the pagan and superstitious world, softening the hearts of men and revealing to them a new life, did Slavery vanish from among refined and generous societies, under the charter, _Pro amore Dei, pro mercede animæ_. And never has it reappeared, except among those nations who have become debased from avarice, or depraved by ambition. When cupidity allows fanaticism to blind the mind with the belief that savages or negroes can be more easily converted to Christianity whilst in slavery than in freedom, then there is an end to social progress. Yet such were the ideas of Louis XIII. when he consigned the negroes of his colonies to Slavery. And such has been the creed of the slaveholders and breeders of America. The monstrous doctrine imposed itself upon the understandings of the slave faction, as the superstitions of the false prophets have fettered and crushed the minds of the pagan nations. It has debased their natural sentiments, as well as it has depressed and perverted their natural talents and virtues. "In the same manner," said Longinus, "as some children always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs, fettered by the prejudices and habits of servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients, who, living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted." XXVII. We may learn from the history of the past, if we will not accept the data of the present, how climate, food, domesticity, or recognized customs of society may alter the minds and dispositions of men; how they may gradually build up governments, founded upon monstrous ideas, and yet in unison with the compunctions of their conscience. Ascribe the origin to any cause you will, it does not alter the revolting facts, nor lessen the repulsiveness of the absurdity, nor the enormity of the crime. Volney believed "that the social institutions called Government and Religion were the true sources and regulators of the activity or indolence of individuals and nations; that they were the efficient causes which, as they extend or limit the natural or superfluous wants, limit or extend the activity of all men. A proof that their influence operates in spite of the difference of climate and soil is, that Tyre, Carthage, and Alexandria formerly possessed the same industry as London, Paris, and Amsterdam; that the Buccaneers and the Malayans have displayed equal turbulence and courage with the Normans, and that the Russians and Polanders have the apathy and indifference of the Hindoos and the Negroes. But, as civil and religious institutions are perpetually varied and changed by the passions of men, their influence changes and varies in very short intervals of time. Hence it is that the Romans commanded by Scipio resembled so little those governed by Tiberius, and that the Greeks of the age of Aristides