y does no longer disgrace any European nation." Since then slavery
was again introduced into Africa, and the newly-discovered regions of
America, and again the Popes raised their voices in the interests of
liberty,--from Pius II. to Pius VII., who, even at the time Napoleon had
robbed him of his liberty, and held him captive in a foreign land,
became the defender of the negro, to Gregory XVI., who, on the third of
November, 1839, insisted in a special Bull on the abolition of the slave
trade, and who spoke in a strain as if he had lived and sat side by side
with Gregory I., thirteen hundred years before. But here let us observe,
that not only the vindication of liberty for all, not only the
abolition of slavery, but the very mode of action followed in this
matter by the Popes, has gained for them immortal honor, and the esteem
of all good men. When the Church abolished slavery in any country where
it existed, the Popes did not compel masters, by harshness or threats,
to manumit their slaves; they did not bring into action the base
intrigues, the low chicanery, the canting hypocrisy of modern statesmen;
they did not raise armies, and send them into the lands of their masters
to burn and to pillage, to lay waste and to destroy; they did not
slaughter, by their schemes, over a million of free men and another
million of slaves; they did not make widows and orphans without numbers;
they did not impoverish the land, and lay upon their subjects burdens
which would crush them into very dust. Nothing of all this. That is not
the way in which the Church abolished slavery. The Popes sent bishops
and priests into those countries where slavery existed, to enlighten the
minds of the masters, and convince them that slaves were men, and
consequently had souls, like other people, too. The Popes, bishops and
priests infused into the hearts of masters a deep love for Jesus Christ,
and consequently a deep love for souls. The Popes, bishops and priests
taught masters to look upon their slaves as created by the same God,
redeemed by the same Jesus Christ, destined for the same glory. The
consequence was, that the relations of slave and master became the
relations of brother to brother; the master began to love his slave, and
to ameliorate his condition, till at last, forced by his own
acknowledged principles, he granted to him his liberty. Thus it was that
slavery was abolished by the preaching of the Popes, bishops and
priests. The great barr