THE POPE. 309 



victorious army in the United States. It has, there- 

 fore, been inferred that slavery in Europe was abolished 

 in the same manner, and the honour of the movement 

 has been bestowed upon the Church. But this is 

 reading history upside down. The extinction of 

 villeinage was not a donation but a conquest : it did 

 not descend from the court and the castle ; it ascended 

 from the village and the town. The Church, however, 

 may claim the merit of having mitigated slavery in its 

 worst days, when its horrors were increased by the 

 pride of conquest and the hostility of race. The 

 clergy belonged to the conquered people, whom they 

 protected from harsh usage to the best of their ability. 

 They taught as the Moslem doctors also teach, and as 

 even the pagan Africans believe, that it is a pious 

 action to emancipate a slave. But there is no reason to 

 suppose that they ever thought of abolishing slavery, 

 and they could not have done so had they wished. 

 Negro slavery was established by subjects of the 

 Church in defiance of the Church. Religion has little 

 power when it works against the stream, but it can 

 give to streams a power which they otherwise would 

 not possess, and it can unite their scattered waters into 

 one majestic flood. 



Rome was taken and sacked but never occupied by 

 the barbarians. It still belonged to the Romans : it 

 still preserved the traditions and the genius of empire. 

 Whatever may have been the origin of British or 

 Celtic Christianity, it is certain that the English were 

 converted by the Papists ; the first Archbishop of 

 Canterbury was an Italian; his converts became mis- 

 sionaries, entered the vast forests of pagan Ger- 

 many, and brought nations to the feet of Rome. The 

 alliance of Pepin and the Roman See, placed also the 



