Among the various religious bodies--the Quakers and the modern Unitarians excepted--the absoluteness of Christian doctrine and morals has always been greatly modified by worldly interests. Not the Episcopal nor Scottish churches, nor indeed any other denomination, can claim the merit of having begotten the noble sentiment so universal in England on the subject of human bondage. The Roman clergy continues, as it always has done, to oscillate between duty and interest; and the various Protestant sects do the same. And it is a significant feature that in the American Union almost every religious denomination has its pro-slavery and its anti-slavery factions. XV. GAULS. AUTHORITIES: _Cæsar, Dieffenbach, Picot, Amadee Thierry, etc._ The Gauls (_Gadhels_, _Gaels_ or _Gals_), a branch of the Aryas, were the first historic race which peopled Central and Western Europe. It is supposed that the Gauls (afterward wrongly called Kelts) emigrated from Asia to Europe before the Greeks, Latins, or Slavonians, as undoubtedly they did long previous to the Teutons or Germans. Already, in prehistoric times, from the regions of the Danube to the Atlantic, on the Alps and the Pyrenees as well as on the British and Irish islands, these first wanderers left their marks in the names of rivers and mountains. Gallia (Gaul) finally became their home, and from thence they repeatedly issued forth and shook the ancient world, ravaged Greece and extended their empire to Asia Minor on the east, and Italy on the south. They burnt republican Rome in its very infancy, and for centuries the Roman republic struggled for life and death with them, until they were finally subdued by Cæsar. The whole of Gaul was occupied by tribes more or less consanguineous, and their internal social organization was in many respects similar. Cæsar, in his bird's-eye view, says that the two dominant classes were the druids and nobles, while under them were the "_plebs, poene servorem habetur loco, quæ per nihil audet et nullo adhibitur consiglio_." This only explains the absence or perhaps dormancy of political rights. "_Plerique_ (not _all_, it will be noticed, but _many_, and these mainly such as had suffered reverses of fortune) _sesse in servitutem_ DICANT _nobilibus--in hos eadem omnia sunt jura quæ dominis in servis_." This latter phrase only means that certain relations between the chief and his dependents were similar to those of master and chattel--being the only form of servitude known to Cæsar, who did not understand the tribal organization on which the authority of the chief was based.