Hitherto, exposed children had generally been taken and reared as slaves; but in A. D. 529, Justinian decreed that not only the father lost all legitimate authority over the child if he exposed it, but also that the child itself preserved its liberty.
This law applied only to the Eastern Empire; in the Western the slavery of exposed children continued for centuries. (Lecky: Hist. of Europ. Morals, vol. ii, p. 32.) The Christian churches throughout the early centuries took especial care of orphans, in parish orphan nurseries, or orphanotrophioe.
The first asylums for deserted and foundling children which are recorded in the Christian era are one in Treves in the sixth century, one at Angiers in the seventh, and a more famous one in Milan, A. D. 787.
Societies for the protection of children were also formed in Milan in the middle of the twelfth century.
At the end of that century a monk of Montpelier, Brother GUY, formed what may be called the first "Children's Aid Society," for the protection, shelter, and education of destitute children, a fraternity which subsequently spread over Europe.
One great cause of the final extreme corruption and extinction of ancient pagan society was the existence of large classes of unfortunate beings, whom no social moral movement of renovation ever reached—the slaves, the gladiators, the barbarian strangers, and the outcast children.
To all these deep strata of misery and crime Christianity gradually penetrated, and brought life and light, and finally an almost entire metamorphosis. As criminal and unfortunate classes, they have—with the exception only of the children—ceased to exist under modern civilization. We have no longer at the basis of modern society the dangers of a multitude of ignorant slaves, or of disaffected barbarous foreigners, or of a profession of gladiators—brutal, brutalizing; but we do still have masses of unfortunate youth, whose condition, though immensely improved, and lightened by the influences of Christianity, is still one of the most threatening and painful phenomena of modern society in nearly all civilized countries.
Still, unlike the experience of Paganism under the Roman Empire and before it, rays of light, of intelligence, and of moral and spiritual influence penetrate to the depths of these masses. The spirit of Christ is slowly and irresistibly permeating even this lowest class of miserable, unfortunate, or criminal beings; inspiring those who perseveringly labor for them, drawing from wealth its dole and from intelligence its service of love, educating the fortunate in the habit of duty to the unfortunate, giving a dignity to the most degraded, and offering hope to the despairing.
CHRIST leads the Reform of the world, as well as its Charity.
Those who have much to do with alms-giving and plans of human improvement soon see how superficial and comparatively useless all assistance or organization is, which does not touch habits of life and the inner forces which form character. The poor helped each year become poorer in force and independence. Education is a better preventive of pauperism than charity. The best police and the most complete form of government are nothing if the individual morality be not there. But Christianity is the highest education of character. Give the poor that, and only seldom will either alms or punishment be necessary.