One of the strongest of the influences exerted by the Christian religion was the bond which it created among people of different races. The religions of the ancient world, with few exceptions, had been national in their character, and had strictly excluded outsiders from any part or benefit therein. Christianity, on the contrary, appealed to whoever would embrace it, of whatever race or nationality, and the line which it drew was not that between those of one race and those of another, but between those who accepted the belief and those who rejected it. The great influence of the medieval church, therefore, was thrown in support of the movement for a system of laws governing the relations between different nations. Such laws, however, were only to apply to races within the pale of Christianity; with all others no agreements of such character could lawfully be held. It is, in fact, only within the past century that the principles of international law have been ever held to apply to any except Christian countries. The underlying principle here observed is not unlike, in its fundamental basis, the division by the Greeks, of mankind into Greeks and barbarians. In the later classification, however, the limits have been extended, and the dividing line is religious instead of racial.