it imputed as a disgrace, that Christianity put conversion before manumission, and _brought them to God, ere it trusted them with themselves_?... It created the simultaneous obligation to make the Pagan a convert, and the convert free." ... "If our author had made his attack from the opposite side, and contended that its doctrines 'proved too much' against servitude, and _assumed with too little qualification the capacity of each man for self-rule_, we should have felt more hesitation in expressing our dissent." I feel unfeigned surprize at these sentiments from one whom I so highly esteem and admire; and considering that they were written at first anonymously, and perhaps under pressure of time, for a review, I hope it is not presumptuous in me to think it possible that they are hasty, and do not wholly express a deliberate and final judgment. I must think there is some misunderstanding; for I have made no high claims about capacity for _self-rule_, as if laws and penalties were to be done away. But the question is, shall human beings, who (as all of us) are imperfect, be controlled by public law, or by individual caprice? Was not my reviewer intending to advocate some form of _serfdom_ which is compatible with legal rights, and recognizes the serf as a man; not _slavery_ which pronounces him a chattel? Serfdom and apprenticeship we may perhaps leave to be reasoned down by economists and administrators; slavery proper is what I attacked as essentially immoral. Returning then to the arguments, I reason against them as if I did not know their author.--I have distinctly avowed, that the effort to liberate Christian slaves was creditable: I merely add, that in this respect Christianity is no better than Mohammedism. But is it really no moral fault,--is it not a moral enormity,--to deny that Pagans have human rights? "That Christianity opened its arms _at all_ to the servile class, _was enough_." Indeed! Then either unconverted men have no natural right to freedom, or Christians may withhold a natural right from them. Under the plea of "bringing them to God," Christians are to deny by law, to every slave who refuses to be converted, the rights of husband and father, rights of persons, rights of property, rights over his own body. Thus manumission is a bribe to make hypocritical converts, and Christian superiority a plea for depriving men of their dearest rights. Is not freedom older than Christianity? Does the Christian recommend his religion to a Pagan by stealing his manhood and all that belongs to it? Truly, if only Christians have a right to personal freedom, what harm is there in hunting and catching Pagans to make slaves of them? And this was exactly the "development" of thought and doctrine in the Christian church. The same priests who taught that _Christians_ have moral rights to their sinews and skin, to their wives and children, and to the fruit of their labour, which _Pagans_ have not, consistently developed the same fundamental idea