oes not
make people wiser and better? Why did he lay down slavery laws without
hinting that they were provisional? Why did he so express himself as to
enable Christian divines and whole Churches to justify slavery from the
Bible long after it had died out of the internal polity of civilised
states? Surely God might have given less time to Aaron's vestments
and the paraphernalia of his own Tabernacle, and devoted some of his
infinite leisure to teaching the Jews that property in human flesh and
blood is immoral. Instead of that he actually told them, not only how
to buy foreigners (Leviticus xxv. 45, 46), but how to enslave their own
brethren (Exodus xxi. 2-11).

When Jesus Christ came from heaven to give mankind a new revelation he
had a fine opportunity to correct the brutalities of the Mosaic Law. Yet
Mr. Henson allows that he "did not actually forbid Slavery in express
terms," and that he "never said in so many words, Slavery is wrong."
But why not? It will not do to say the time was not ripe, for Mr. Henson
admits that in Rome "the fashionable philosophies, especially that of
the Stoics, branded Slavery as an outrage against the natural Equality
of Men." Surely Jesus Christ might have kept abreast of the Stoics.
Surely, too, as he did not mean to say anything more for at least two
thousand years, he might have gone _in advance_ of the best teaching of
the age, so as to provide for the progress of future generations.

But, says Mr. Henson, Jesus Christ "laid down broad principles which
took from Slavery its bad features, and tended, by an unerring law to
its abolition." Well, the tendency was a remarkably slow one. Men still
living can remember when Slavery was abolished in the British dominions.
I can remember when it was abolished in the United States. Eighteen
centuries of Christian _tendency_ were necessary to kill Slavery! Surely
the natural growth of civilisation might have done as much in that time,
though Jesus Christ had never lived and taught. How civilisation _did_
mitigate the horrors of Slavery, and was gradually but surely working
towards its abolition, may be seen in Gibbon's second chapter. This
was under the great Pagan emperors, some of whom knew Christianity and
despised it.

"Slavery is cruel," says Mr. Henson, while "Christianity teaches men
to be kind and to love one another." But _teaching_ men to love one
another, even if Christianity taught nothing else--which is far from the
truth--is a v