time, did not pass on mankind a sentence of political despair. They submitted to the powers of an evil world, but they nevertheless did, and meant to do, that by which those powers would be destroyed. They bade the slave remain a slave, but it was in order that he might not imperil the sacred deposit of Christian principle which bore with it the redemption of the slave for ever. The kingdom of Christ was not of this world, but nevertheless its liegemen looked forward to the day when “the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and that He should reign for ever and ever.”
Therefore the Church, whenever she has been herself, and whenever she has acted in the spirit of her Founder, has laboured, not by inciting revolution, but by inculcating social duty and kindling social affection, to do away with all unjust and harsh distinctions between man and man, to diffuse the principles of fraternity and equality in their true sense through the world, and to make each community a community indeed. Therefore she has instinctively and steadily insisted on the education of the poor. Therefore she has steadily assailed slavery and caste, and feudal serfdom, and all such barriers as prevented the different classes of men in Christian nations from becoming members one of another. The brotherhood of man, in short, is the idea which Christianity in its social phase has been always striving to realize, and the progress of which constitutes the social history of Christendom. With what difficulties this idea has struggled; how it has been marred by revolutionary violence, as well as impeded
