XXVI.

Not until the star of Christianity rose above the horizon of the pagan and superstitious world, softening the hearts of men and revealing to them a new life, did Slavery vanish from among refined and generous societies, under the charter, _Pro amore Dei, pro mercede animae_. And never has it reappeared, except among those nations who have become debased from avarice, or depraved by ambition. When cupidity allows fanaticism to blind the mind with the belief that savages or negroes can be more easily converted to Christianity whilst in slavery than in freedom, then there is an end to social progress. Yet such were the ideas of Louis XIII. when he consigned the negroes of his colonies to Slavery. And such has been the creed of the slaveholders and breeders of America. The monstrous doctrine imposed itself upon the understandings of the slave faction, as the superstitions of the false prophets have fettered and crushed the minds of the pagan nations. It has debased their natural sentiments, as well as it has depressed and perverted their natural talents and virtues. "In the same manner," said Longinus, "as some children always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs, fettered by the prejudices and habits of servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients, who, living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted."