er. I know that Christians in the present day often declare
that Christianity had a large share in bringing about the abolition
of slavery, and this because men professing Christianity were
abolitionists. I plead that these so-called Christian abolitionists were
men and women whose humanity, recognising freedom for all, was in this
in direct conflict with Christianity. It is not yet fifty years since
the European Christian powers jointly agreed to abolish the slave trade.
What of the effect of Christianity on these powers in the centuries
which had preceded? The heretic Condorcet pleaded powerfully for freedom
whilst Christian France was still slave-holding. For many centuries
Christian Spain and Christian Portugal held slaves. Porto Rico freedom
is not of long date; and Cuban emancipation is even yet newer. It was
a Christian King, Charles 5th, and a Christian friar, who founded in
Spanish America the slave trade between the Old World and the New. For
some 1800 years, almost, Christians kept slaves, bought slaves, sold
slaves, bred slaves, stole slaves. Pious Bristol and godly Liverpool
less than 100 years ago openly grew rich on the traffic. Daring the
ninth century week Christians sold slaves to the Saracens. In the
eleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in Rome, and
the profit went to the Church.

It is said that William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a Christian.
But at any rate his Christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief.
As an abolitionist he did not believe Leviticus xxv, 44-6; he must
have rejected Exodus xxi, 2-6; he could not have accepted the many
permissions and injunctions by the Bible deity to his chosen people to
capture and hold slaves. In the House of Commons on 18th February, 1796,
Wilberforce reminded that Christian assembly that infidel and anarchic
France had given liberty to the Africans, whilst Christian and monarchic
England was "obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice".

Wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the whole
influence of the English Court, and the great weight of the Episcopal
Bench, against him. George III, a most Christian king, regarded
abolition theories with abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lords
was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. When Christian
missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to Demerara negroes under
the rule of Christian England, they were treated by Christian judge