urch members, bought, sold, lashed, and treated like
cattle, answer the King in that great day?

But to return: the result of such teachings was soon evident. "The
common people heard him gladly," hung on his steps and words by
thousands, and hailed him as deliverer; while Scribes and Pharisees,
priests and rulers, denounced him as "a friend of publicans and
sinners," only seeking popularity among the masses, to disturb the
public peace, and revolutionize the government. Mark, it was not simply
religious, but _political_ interference and teaching they charged him
with, and on this charge they finally compassed his death.

In his private teachings to his disciples he strongly inculcated this
truth. Striving among themselves for the supremacy, he charges them,
Matt. 20:26-28, and many other places, "It shall not be so among you;
but whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as
the Son of man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to
give his life a ransom for many." The law thus explicitly laid down, and
in John 13 enforced by his example, is the very opposite of chattelism.
In his church, none were to claim supremacy over others, much less
_enslave_ them; none to despise labor and the laborer, much less condemn
others to it while themselves lived in idleness.

Thus Christ, so far from sanctioning chattelism or property in man in
any shape or form, by precept and example taught the opposite, the
dignity of labor and the laborer, the common brotherhood of man, and
consequent equality, political and religious. Did his apostles indorse
this doctrine, or, fearing the result, did they side with the all
prevalent system of class legislation and slavery?

_Teachings of the Apostles._

The result of their teaching in Judea is given in Acts 4:32-35--"And the
multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither
said any of them _that aught of the things he possessed was his own_;
but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that
lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and
brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at
the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to every man according as
he had need." They not only believed in "liberty, equality, and
fraternity," but practised its extreme--not only equality of rights, but
equality of property, among the brotherhood.

But this was c