CH. II.] BASTARDY, 147 



society was composed only of masters and slaves, 

 and at the present day a portion of the globe is 

 still under the same system. No one can deny that 

 this state of things is more favourable to orphans 

 and natural children, of whom we speak, than the 

 system at present existing in Ireland. For in the 

 former case the most disadvantageous condition in 

 the lot of these children was their being the chil- 

 dren of slaves ; but they had at the same time a 

 master obliged by the law and by his own interests 

 to feed, lodge and clothe them, without their being 

 conscious of the weight of slavery. 



Has Christianity then come to make worse the 

 condition of that class for which our Saviour had 

 such a predilection ? Certainly not quite the 

 contrary. In the state of slavery the masters of 

 these children provided only for their corporeal 

 wants ; and Christianity, in depriving them of that 

 protection, substituted other protectors, temporal 

 as well as spiritual, in the religious orders. At 

 the period when men were freed from slavery, reli- 

 gious orders were simultaneously established, who 

 formed the most essential condition of the new 

 state of society which was established ; for without 

 them what was to become of these children ? The 

 Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, in his evidence, 

 manifests so strongly his conviction that the con- 

 fiscated property of the religious orders, with which 



L.2 



