But although slavery was still recognized in the new Society which outwardly made no abrupt changes, which desired no sudden and violent uprooting in the old Society, a marvellous change passed over the ordinary conception of the slave. An extract from a letter of Paulinus of Nola to Sulpicius Severus, the disciple and biographer of S. Martin of Tours (_circa_ the last years of the fourth century), will give some idea of the regard so largely entertained by Christian thinkers for the slave members of the community. Thanking Sulpicius for a young slave he had sent him, Paulinus of Nola, recognizing in the slave an earnest and devout soul, writes to his friend as follows: “He has served me, and woe is me that I have allowed him to be my servant--that he who was no servant of sin, should yet be in the service of a sinner! Unworthy that I am, every day I suffered him to wash my feet; and there was no menial duty he would not have performed had I allowed him, so unsparing was he of his body--so watchful for his soul. Ah, it is Jesus Christ that I venerate in this young man; for surely every faithful soul proceeds from God, and every humble man of heart comes from the very heart of Christ.”[75] There is little doubt but that this authoritative teaching of the Christian masters in the matter of the perfect equality of the slave in the eyes of God, and the consequent tender and often loving treatment meted out to the Christian members of the despised and downtrodden class, gravely misliked the more thoughtful among the pagan aristocracy of Rome, and that this teaching and practice of Christians in the case of the vast slave class in the pagan Empire ranked high among the dangers which they felt threatened the existence of the old state of things. Grave considerations of this kind must have strongly influenced the minds of men like Pius and Marcus and their entourage, before they determined to carry out their bitter policy of persecution. The Romans of the old school could have well afforded to regard with comparative indifference the enfranchisement of any number of Christian slaves. Freedmen, especially in the imperial household, were very numerous in the days of the Antonines. But the teaching that these slaves--_while still slaves_--were their brethren, and ought to be treated with love and esteem, was a new and disturbing thought in the Empire of the great Antonines. * * * * * Lecky, in his _History of European Morals_ (chap. iv.), has a fine passage in which he sums up the great features of the new movement of Christian charity, and its results on the world at large. It runs as follows: