THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY

9

life of such a brotherhood of labour at first possible could not be lasting in the world as it then existed. Only after a long discipline, of which we cannot even now see the end, could a strength of inner character become so widespread as to make such communal labour in its full unselfishness practical and normal and natural, except among a chosen few.

Nevertheless, the attempt, such as it was, did not altogether perish without bearing fruit. The Agape, or 'Love Meal,' continued in every Christian communion for many generations. The slave and the freeman, the Greek and the Jew, man and woman, differing in race and colour and sex, sat side by side together at a common table, where each gift of food was a gift to the one brotherhood, shared together in love. This surely was no slight victory in a divided and casteridden world.

In the midst of all the selfishness and worldly greed of later ages this voluntary communism of the early days became a continual source of inspiration to earnestminded souls, who could not be satisfied with things as they were. "It was cherished," says Professor Sidgwick, "in the traditions of the early and middle ages as the ideal form of the Christian Society."

Brotherhoods of the Common Life, both secular and monastic; guilds for the service of the poor; Franciscan orders of little brothers of the poor'; Sisterhoods of mercy and charity and pity, each of them leading a

yeomen. It had passed to rapacious capitalists who evicted the old peasantry, and were engaged in exploiting their huge estates-their latifundia-by means of gangs of slaves.

This last point, just mentioned, brings us to the most wide-reaching and important of all the labour problems, which the early Church was compelled at once to face, -the fact of human slavery.

For labour,' in the Greek and Roman world, was mainly performed by slaves. We must understand clearly the immense significance of this fact, and mark the treatment which these slaves received. In the domestic life, among the Romans, there seems to have been only occasional cruelty towards slaves. But on the large estates in the country-the latifundia—and on the huge sea-galleys which brought corn to Rome, and in the Sardinian mines, the sufferings of the slaves were appalling. It is difficult even to picture how vast that cruelty was, and how terrible the slave mortality. Desperate efforts at revolt, on the part of the slaves, were always followed by the most savage acts of repression, till fear entered into their very bones, and revolt became impossible on account of terror. In these slave wars the very worst passions of mankind were let loose. Slavery was probably the greatest of all the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It corrupted the rulers themselves, and made them in turn the slaves of their own vices and evil passions.

A very large proportion of the early Christian converts were gathered from this slave community. For many centuries the slaves must have outnumbered the freemen in the Christian Church. Nietszche is accurate in his picture to this extent. Christianity was a slave religion,'-in so far as the slaves welcomed its message first and were the most numerous early disciples. This fact, however, was not its shame but its glory. Christ came to seek and to save those that were 'lost.'

St. Paul deals with the problem of the treatment of slaves in most of his epistles. We can trace his method throughout, and on the whole it remains true to the principle of Christ's own earlier teaching though something of the external and legalistic conception of duty yet remains in the midst of his new-found lofty idealism. On the one hand, St. Paul is never tired of emphasising the complete equality of brotherhood between bond and free. All such temporary distinctions as slave and freeman are obliterated within the circle of the Christian faith.

"In Christ," he says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

This principle of brotherhood was not theoretical merely, but intensely practical. The tenderness of the Apostle to the runaway slave Onesimus, combined with the gentle pleading with which he requests Philemon for his freedom, is one of the most beautiful personal

touches of Christian character in the Epistles. He writes to Philemon,

For perhaps Onesimus therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldst receive him for ever:

"Not now as a slave, but above a slave, as a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more to thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?

"If, therefore, thou count me as a partner, receive him as myself."

On the other hand, while standing out for freedom, St. Paul pays heed to existing conditions. He urges the need of patience: there must be no futile upheaval of society. The slave, who cannot obtain his freedom from his non-Christian master, is told not to despair, but to rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free, and to do his slave's work in future, not as a time-server, but as unto the Lord.' He should not, however, neglect any opportunity of purchasing or obtaining his freedom, if an occasion occurred.

We can trace here in St. Paul's method something of the spirit of the Master whom Paul served. When the new inner principle of brotherhood had gone so deep, as in the case of Philemon, the outward change of Onesimus' lot, from slavery to freedom, was certain to follow. And the voluntary character of the act of emancipation would make its superlative value.

The late Duke of Argyle has well expressed this truth in the following memorable words :

"There is no method of reform so powerful as this:-I{ alongside any false or corrupt belief, or any vicious and cruel system, we place one incompatible idea,—then without any noise of controversy, or clash of battle, those beliefs and customs will wane and die. It was thus that Chritianity, without one single word of direct attack, killed off one of the greatest and most universal curses of the pagan world,-the everdeepening curse of slavery."

It would be possible to trace down the course of history the long process of this emancipation. We could note the one incompatible idea' which was planted, the idea, that is to say, of brotherhood, daily experienced in outward acts, as a reality and not an abstract dream. There was the worship side by side, as brothers and sisters, in the one common Supper of the Lord,' the sharing the same sacred cup and the partaking together of the one consecrated bread. At the end of the worship,-as the custom was in those early days,-master embraced slave and slave embraced master, giving and receiving the kiss of peace. Then would follow the Agape,' or 'Love Feast,' already mentioned above, at which all sat down together in the full realisation of brotherly love. In such an atmosphere the bondage of slavery was already more than half broken. For very shame, the Christian master felt it impossible to refuse to the Christian slave his freedom. The one incompatible idea' fulfilled its work.

Yet, so strong is the selfish and possessive instinct in human character, that a weary lapse and relapse