l, mixed of good and evil. The humanity of
good Pagan emperors softened the harshness of the laws of bondage, and
manumission had always been extremely common amongst the Romans. Of
course, the more humane religion of Christ acted still more powerfully
in the same direction, especially in inculcating the propriety of
freeing _Christian_ slaves. This was creditable, but not peculiar, and
is not a fact of such a nature as to add to the exclusive claims of
Christianity. To every _proselyting_ religion the sentiment is so
natural, that no divine spirit is needed to originate and establish
it. Mohammedans also have a conscience against enslaving Mohammedans,
and generally bestow freedom on a slave as soon as he adopts their
religion. But no zeal for _human_ freedom has ever grown out of the
purely biblical and ecclesiastical system, any more than out of the
Mohammedan. In the middle ages, zeal for the liberation of serfs first
rose in the breasts of the clergy, after the whole population had
become nominally Christian. It was not men, but Christians, whom the
clergy desired to make free: it is hard to say, that they thought
Pagans to have any human rights at all, even to life. Nor is it
correct to represent ecclesiastical influences as the sole agency
which overthrew slavery and serfdom. The desire of the kings to raise
up the chartered cities as a bridle to the barons, was that which
chiefly made rustic slavery untenable in its coarsest form; for a
"villain" who escaped into the free cities could not be recovered. In
later times, the first public act against slavery came from republican
France, in the madness of atheistic enthusiasm; when she declared
black and white men to be equally free, and liberated the negroes of
St. Domingo. In Britain, the battle of social freedom has been fought
chiefly by that religious sect which rests least on the letter of
Scripture. The bishops, and the more learned clergy, have consistently
been apathetic to the duty of overthrowing the slave system.--I was
thus led to see, that here also the New Testament precepts must not be
received by me as any final and authoritative law of morality. But I
meet opposition in a quarter from which I had least expected it;--from
one who admits the imperfection of the morality actually attained by
the apostles, but avows that Christianity, as a divine system, is
not to be identified with apostolic doctrine, but with the doctrine
_ultimately developed_ in the