According to a well-known and capital principle of jurisprudence, stolen property cannot be sold, and the attempt to sell it, knowing the primary abstraction, is a crime. The form of sale is impotent, and the title does not pass. Wherever he finds his property, the original owner may resume it as his own. The pawnbroker who has received it in pledge must release his hold; the purchaser who has paid the price must give it up. But can a stolen man be sold? Is there any form of sale which is not impotent to complete this great transfer, so as to give it the semblance of validity against the original owner? Can the title pass? Infinitely absurd and unnatural is the pretext that a man may reclaim his stolen coat wherever he finds it, but cannot reclaim himself! Is the coat more than the man? Slavery asserts that it is; and the whole country says the same, when it sanctions the return of a fugitive slave. But this pretension is only a further outgrowth of that appalling tyranny which begins by denying the right of a man to himself. The Christian Church, by beautiful, glorious example, testifies from earliest days against this pretension. Hermes, Prefect of Rome, converted to Christ, comes to church on Easter with twelve hundred and fifty slaves, whom after baptism he sets free. Chromatius, another Prefect of Rome, under Diocletian, also a convert, gives liberty after baptism to fourteen hundred, while he proclaims, “They who begin to be children of God must not be slaves of men.” St. Germain, the admirable Bishop of Paris, on receiving alms, cries out, “Thanks be to God, we can now ransom a slave!” This list might be extended. Better even than such personal testimony is the same sentiment manifest in social institutions. St. Theodore, illustrious in the Eastern Church, imposed this rule upon its monasteries: “You must never employ slaves, neither in personal service, nor in affairs of the convent, nor in culture of the earth; _the slave is a man created in the image of God_.” The Church of the West was not less earnest. St. Benedict of Aniane, the second of the name in canonization, would not allow convents to be served by a slave. In the bosom of these retreats, as also in the priesthood, the former slave mingled with the former lord, nor was there any obstacle between him and the bishop’s crosier. Onesimus, once the slave of Philemon, and hailed as brother beloved by Paul, is said to have become bishop of Ephesus.[284]