a picture of the ancestral mansion of the Washingtons in Northants.

"A Few Sea-Birds," by H. W. ELLIOTT, is exceedingly interesting, and beautifully illustrated.

Especially timely and important is Mrs. LAMB's comprehensive and entertaining account of the origin, development and present situation of the United States Coast Survey. With numerous happily selected illustrations, it explains the methods of work pursued by this department, and gives sketches of the four superintendents, with their portraits, and much amusing anecdote.

GEORGE E. WARING contributes the first of his series of papers on the Austrian Tyrol-full of interesting sketches of the country, and magnificently illustrated.

CHARLES BARNARD, in a short illustrated paper, shows the superiority of the American over the English locomotive as a competitor in the markets of the world.

E. M. BACON, contributes an interesting description of the magnetic motor and its inventor, Mr. Wesley Gary, with illus trations.

Beside this variety of interesting articles and pictures, there are the always well-conducted editorial departments, including the timely and graceful gossip of the Easy Chair, a comprehensive critical record of recent books, a summary of scientific progress, a résumé of current historical events, and an amusing "Drawer."

MESSRS. POTT, YOUNG & Co., announce the following as soon to be published. "CHILDREN'S SERMONS," by the Rev. S. Baring Gould. "MANCHESTER SERMONS," by the Rev. W. J. Knox Little. "AUTHORIZED LIFE OF THE LATE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD (Bp. Selwyn), by the Rev. W. H. Tucker, author of "Under His Banner." "STUDIES ON THE COLLECTS OF THE COMMUNION OFFICE, Critical and Devotional," by Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D., Dean of Norwich.

CORONATION HYMNS AND SONGS, for Praise and Prayer Meetings, Home and Social Singing. Charles F. Deems, D.D. LL.D., and Theodore E. Perkins, Editors. A. T. BARNES & Co.: NEW YORK, 1879, 35c.

We suppose this book gets its name, because the good old tune Coronation is placed the first. It contains a great many good old psalm tunes, and others which though equally good of their kind, are not, in our opinion, suited for sacred music. It is nicely printed, convenient in form and cheap.

AMERICAN CHURCH

REVIEW.

VOL. XXXI.-MAY AND JUNE, 1879.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE ROMAN LAW.*

PART SECOND. CHAPTER IX.-(Continued.)

The ancient law retained its control over the profectitious. property; that is to say, over the estate proceeding from the father, whom Justinian was unwilling to deprive of that which the son possessed only by paternal liberality. Something still remained to be accomplished, in order to secure equality among all the parties to the peculium; something, also, in order to bring the law of property of children into more perfect harmony with the paternal usufruct. But the Roman jurisprudence would not live long enough, to secure that important result, by its own advancement.

I ought not to conclude this tableau of imperial legislation with reference to the paternal power, without speaking of the efforts of the first Christian Cæsar to ameliorate the customary barbarity of exposing new born infants. That custom was a relic of the ancient right of life and death, and of that other power of the father to sell his children.

even for the third time.' We have witnessed the fall of the domestic tribunal, and the privilege of selling was annulled by a decadence which marched parallel. Dioclesian established that fact in the most decided' manner, and the writings of the classic jurisconsults only speak, in a general manner, of the sale of children in power,' as a legal fiction leading to emancipation. We know, however, from the writings of Paul, that the father when pressed by extreme poverty could sell his new-born son into slavery'; many authentic instances of the exercise of that inhuman right

1 Dyon. of Halic. Antiq. lib. II, c. xxvii. Ulp. Frag. tit. x, §. Shulting ad Ulpian. fragm. tit. x, §1; Dattius de vendit. liber. in the Thes. Meerman t. II, p. 635. Binkershoek, de jure occid. liberos., c. vi. Thomasius dissert. tit. Just. de patria potest. c. i. Girard Noodt in Paulum, p. 567, 588, and Amica responsio, p. 591, 606.

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* *

Liberos a parentibus, neque venditionis, neque donationis titulo, neque pignoris jure, aut alio quolibet modo in alium transferri posse manifestissimi juris est." L. 1, C. Just. de patrib. qui filios distraxerunt.

'Binkershoek loc. cit. p. 179.

248.

4

Baldinus in leges Const. M., p.

Gaius. 1, 132. According to the XII Tables there was, in ancient times, no way for a son to break the bond of the paternal power at once: "Si pater filium tervenunduit, filius a patre liber esto." He must be reduced to a quasi slavery and manumitted; and it was not until he was sold and manumitted for the third time, that the paternal power was destroyed. In the case of daughters and grandchildren one sale was sufficient. After the third sale the son was re-sold to the parent, who then manumitted him and thus became the patron of his emancipated son, a position which would otherwise have belonged to the purchaser who gave him his final manumission.-V. Gaius. Tomk. & Lem. Ed. p. 131, et seq. Paul Sent. lib. v, Vol. I, n. 1.

are found under Constantine', Theodosins the Great' and their successors, and St. Jerome has preserved for us the complaints of a poor mother, whose three sons had been sold to pay the public taxes.'

Moreover, such was the misery of the people that fathers who could find no sale for their children exposed them in solitary places, that death might remove them, or in public places that charity might receive them.*

These customs deeply wounded the humanity of Christian morals, and Tertullian bitterly reproached the pagans with them. But listen to Lactantius: "It is impossible to

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1 L. 1, C. Theod. de his qui sanguinolentos emptos vel nutriendos acceperint, year 329. L. 2, C. Just. de patrib. qui filios suos, and Cujas on that law.

'L. 1, C. Theod. de patrib. qui filios distraxerunt.

'Mihi est maritus, qui fiscalis debiti gratia. Sæpe suspensus est et flagellatus, ac poenis omnibus cruciatus, servatur in carcere. Tres autem nobis filii fuerunt qui pro ejusdem debiti necessitate distracti sunt. In vita Paphnutii. Godefroy on law 1, C. Theod. de patrib. qui filios distraxerunt. The mother could not sell her children; for the right of selling emanated from the Paternal Power.-Cujas.

Rævardus Conject., lib. I. c. xvii. Letter of Trajan to Pliny the Younger, lib. x, 72. See L. 4 D. de agnosc. liberos. of Paul. It assimilated the exposure to the murder of the child as follows: "Necare videtur non tantum is qui partum perfocat, sed et is qui abjicit, et qui alimonia denegat, et is qui publicis locis misericordia causa exponit quam ipse non habet." But in case of poverty the father did not incur those severe reproaches, as is shown by imperial legislation. It is with the advantage of that observation that we must read the dispute of Noodt and Binkershoek on that text of Paul. Gibbon accuses them both of exaggeration Gibbon, chap. xliv, and I am of his opinion.

*See his vehement words, Apolog., §9. Before him Athenagoras, Christian philosopher, as he called himself, had characterized. that exposure as parricide. See his Apology for the Christians.

admit that fathers have the right to put their new-born children to death; for it is a great impiety. God caused their souls to be born for life, and not for death. How does it happen, then, that there are men willing to soil their hands in depriving beings, scarcely formed, of that life which comes from God, and which they have not given them? Will they spare the blood of the stranger who do not spare their own? What shall I say of those, also, whom a false affection leads to expose their children? Can we consider as innocent those who offer their own flesh and blood to dogs, and slay their children more cruelly than if they strangled them? And even when it happens that the child exposed finds some one who undertakes to nurture it, will the father be less guilty for having devoted his own blood to servitude or prostitution, ad servitutem vel ad lupanar? It would be quite as well to kill his child as to expose it. It is true that homicidal--parricida-fathers complain of their poverty, and that they are unable to bring up many children. As if the things of this world belong to those who possess them? As if God did not every day elevate the poor to wealth and cause the rich to fall into poverty!

Moreover, those whom indigence prevents from bringing up children should abstain from marrying, which would be far better than to lay impious hands upon the works of God'."

Such was the language of Lactantius, that eloquent interpreter of Christianity; he was then the preceptor of Crispus, son of Constantine, and his book was dedicated to

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"At enim parricidæ facultatem angustias conqueruntur, nec se pluribus liberis educandis sufficere posse prætendunt: quasi vero aut facultates in potestate sint possidentium, aut non quotidie Deus ex Divitibus pauperes, et ex pauperibus divites faciat. Quare si quis liberos ob pauperiem non poterit educare, satius est ut se ab uxoris congressione contineat, quam sceleratis manibus Dei opera corrumpat." Divin. instit.. lib. vi, c. xx.