brought twenty Africans to Virginia, and sold them as slaves. The same year in which the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock, these slaves were landed at Hampton, in Virginia. It is estimated that up to the year 1808, when this trade ceased by law among us, there had been brought hither from Africa 300,000 slaves. Not a few have been imported since, in spite of law, but comparatively the number must be small. From these, as ancestors of the race now existing here, we have at present about 4,000,000 of blacks in this country; so that instead of diminishing and using up the number first brought, we have very greatly increased it.

It is seen, therefore, that common report babbles very foolishly and indefinitely when she allows herself to talk about this black race as the one that has supplied the world through all time with slaves. This slavery of the blacks is a very modern af

fair, reaching back but a little way into the long ages of the past, notwithstanding the oracular message which the monuments of Egypt are alleged to send to us.

And there is another fact which has of ten been brought out in one way and another, but ought not to be omitted in this connection: slavery was essentially dead among all Christian nations when this negro slavery began. Even the very imperfect Christianity which had prevailed for fifteen hundred years in Europe had taken all the old life out of the system. By common. consent, it was held to be contrary to the teachings of the gospel, and a scandal to any who bore the name of Christ. But when the barrier was once broken down, nothing could stop the mighty rush of the river. It was because slavery was so at war with the Christian sentiment of Europe at that time that men had to be pious who

went into it. They must allege a Christian motive for it. The pope must be called in to baptize it, and pronounce over it his solemn mummeries. And the cant which was then begun has always continued; and especially in these latter days the upholders of slavery among us have presented the pious side of the system, ad

nauseam.

The facts thus brought forward seem to show clearly and conclusively that there is no more foundation for that wide-spread myth about the use of the black race for slaves through all the ages of the past, than there is in the prevailing notion about the race of Ham. We do not of course attempt to deny that these black tribes of Africa have enslaved each other in their own home, just as other savage and barbarous tribes all the world over have been wont to do. But that they have served to

furnish mankind generally with slaves, will not be alleged by those who pay any heed to the plain and open instructions of history.

CHAPTER VIII.

IS THE HUMAN RACE ONE OR MANY?

LITTLE more than eighteen hundred years ago, the Apostle Paul, in the course of his labors and travels, paid a brief visit to the famous city

of Athens. This place had then passed the point of its highest glory, and was already declining. But its pride remained in full strength; for pride never rises higher in a family or a State than when they begin to be in a run-down condition.

The Athenians, we are told, spent "their time in nothing else but either to tell or hear some new thing." But they never heard things newer or stranger to them