ive to existing
social distinctions, and also to the splendour of that scheme which
transcends them all, than St Paul. In proof of this it is sufficient to
point to that immortal treatise on social unity which is commonly called
the Epistle to the Ephesians. In this the fundamental secret is seen to
consist, not in a rigid system but in a transforming spirit working
through a divine Society in which all worldly distinctions are of no
account. Slavery, for instance, was, in his view, and was actually in
process of time, to be abolished not by a stroke of the pen but by a
change of ideal. Nor is the witness lacking in writings subsequent to
the New Testament. To instance one of the earliest. In an official
letter sent by the Roman Church to the Christians in Corinth towards the
end of the first century, in a passage eulogising the latter community
this suggestive sentence occurs: "You did everything without respect of
persons."

Needless to say however, this point of view, this new spirit, only
gradually permeated the Christian Church itself, let alone the great
world outside. We are not surprised to learn that it was a point of
criticism among the opponents of the religion that among its adherents
were still found masters and slaves. An ancient writer in reply to
critics who cry out "You too have masters and slaves. Where then is your
so-called equality?" thus makes answer:

Our sole reason for giving one another the name of brother is
because we believe we are equals. For since all human objects are
measured by us after the spirit and not after the body, although
there is a diversity of condition among human bodies, yet slaves
are not slaves to us; we deem and term them brothers after the
spirit, and fellow-servants in religion[28].

Pointing in the same direction is the fact that the title "slave" never
occurs on a Christian tombstone.

It is plain from this, and from similar quotations which might be
multiplied, that the policy of Christianity in face of the first social
problem of the day, namely slavery, was not violently to undo the
existing bonds by which Society was held together, in the hope that some
new machinery would at once be forthcoming--a plan which has since been
adopted with dire consequences in Russia--but to evacuate the old system
of the spirit which sustained it; and to replace it with a new spirit, a
new outlook on life, which would slowly but inevitably lead