reached this late day, as the rules and reasons of the church in such cases. He says "Is it not better that the plate should be melted by the bishop to maintain the poor, when they can be maintained by no other means, than that it should become the spoil and plunder of a sacrilegious enemy? Will not the Lord thus expostulate with us, Why did you suffer so many helpless persons to die with hunger, when you had gold to relieve and support them? Why were so many captives carried away and sold without ransom? Why were so many suffered to be slain by the enemy? It would have been better to have preserved the vessels of living men than lifeless metals. To this, what answer can be returned? Should one say, I was afraid that the temple of God should want its ornaments: Christ would answer, My sacraments require no gold, nor do they please me more for being ministered in gold, as they are not to be bought with gold. The ornament of my sacrament is the redemption of captives; and those alone are precious vessels that redeem souls from death."

The saint concludes that though it would be highly criminal for a man to convert the sacred vessels to his own private use, yet it is so far from being a crime, that he looks upon it as an obligation incumbent on him and his brethren to prefer the living temples of God to the unnecessary ornaments of the material edifices. See Ambrose de Offic. lib. ii. cap. 28; and such was the doctrine of St. Austin, see Possid. Vit. Aug. caput 24; of Acacius of Amida, see Socrat. lib. vii. c. 24; of Deigratias of Carthage, see Vict. de Persec. Vandal, lib. i.; of Cyril of Jerusalem, see Theodoret, lib. ii. c. 27; yea all, who have touched on the subject, have subscribed to the doctrine of St. Ambrose. Even the Emperor Justinian, in his law against sacrilege, forbids the church plate, vestments, or any other gifts, to be sold, or pawned; but adds, "except in case of captivity or famine, the lives and souls of men being preferable to any vessels or vestments whatever." See Codex Just. lib. i. tit. 2. de Sacr. Eccles. leg. 21; also see Bower's Life of Agapetus, p. 354.

It will be readily conceived that the barbarians, in the earlier ages of the Christian church, treated their slaves with cruelty, inconsistent with the spirit of the new religion; and, upon their adoption of the Christian creed, they sometimes ran into an opposite extreme, contrary to the rules of the church. In both cases the church used her authority, and, says Bishop England, upon their embrace of Christianity," slavery began to assume a variety

of mitigated forms among them," which will, in some degree, be developed as we proceed with the history of canonical legislation on that subject.

The rules of the Christian church are evidently founded upon the laws of God, as delivered to Moses: "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."

"If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite his man-servant's tooth, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him go for his tooth's sake." Exod. xxi. 20, 21, 26, 27. And if a man took his female slave to wife, and became displeased with her * * she should be free. See Deut. xxi. 10-15. But fornication in a female slave was not punished by death, but by stripes. See Lev. xix. 20-23.

Neither the laws of Moses, nor indeed of any civilized people, have ever permitted unusual or cruel punishments to be inflicted on the slave. Civilization, as well as Judaism, seems to have inculcated, "Be not excessive toward any; and without discretion do nothing. If thou have a servant, let him be unto thee as thyself, because thou hast bought him with a price." Eccl. xxxiii. 29.

Among heathen nations, their laws were to the effect, that when the slave, sick or wounded, was neglected, or abandoned to his fate by his master; yet, if he recovered, the master should lose his property in such slave, and the slave should be free; and such neglect was often otherwise made punishable. The Roman law sanctioned this doctrine: "Si verberatus fuerit servus non mortifere, negligentia autem perierit, de vulnerato actio erit, non de occiso." See Lex Aquillia. And so in ancient France, see Fœdere, vol. iii. p. 290: If negligence or bad treatment towards the slave was proved in the master, the slave was declared free.

At this day, in all civilized countries, the civil law forbids unusual and cruel punishment of slaves, and also a wanton and careless negligence of them, either in sickness or health. Thus the law punishes the master for his neglect to govern his slaves, by making him responsible for their bad conduct, and the damage their want of proper government may occasion others.

In the year 494, Pope Gelesius admonished the bishops, at their ordinations, that—

"Ne unquam ordinationes præsumat illicitas; ne

*

curæ

aut cuilibet conditioni obnoxium notatumque ad sacros ordines permittat accedere."

*

That he should never presume to hold unlawful ordinations; that he should not allow to holy orders * * any person bound to the service of the court, or liable to bond for his condition (slavery) or marked thereto.

In the year 506, a council was held at Agdle, the sixty-second canon of which is

"Si quis servum proprium sine conscientiâ judicis occiderit, excommunicatione vel pœnitentia biennii reatum sanguinis emen

dabit."

If any one shall put his own servant to death, without the knowledge of the judge, let him make compensation for the guilt of blood by excommunication or two years' penance.

Another council was held eleven years later. Many of the canons of this synod are transcripts of those of Agdle. The thirty-fourth is:

"Si quis servum proprium sine conscientiâ judicis occiderit, excommunicatione biennii effusionem sanguinis expiabit."

If any one shall slay his own servant without the knowledge of the judge, let him expiate the shedding of blood by an excommunication of two years.

This was nearly two hundred years after the law of Constantine forbidding this exercise of power by the master.

The third council of Orleans was held in the year 538.

The thirteenth canon regulates, that if Christian slaves shall be possessed by Jews, and these latter require them to do any thing forbidden by the Christian religion, or if the Jews shall seize upon any of their servants to whip or punish them for those things that have been declared to be excusable or forgiven, and those slaves fly to the church for protection, they are not to be given up, unless there be given and received a just and sufficient sum to warrant their protection.

The canon xxvi. gives a specimen of the early feudalism nearly similar to the subsequent villain service.

"Ut nullus servilibus colonariisque conditionibus obligatus, juxta statuta sedis apostolicæ, ad honores ecclesiasticos admittatur; nisi prius aut testamento, aut per tabulas legitime constiterit absolutum. Quod si quis episcoporum, ejus qui ordinatur conditionem sciens, transgredi per ordinationem inhibitam fortasse voluerit, anni spatio missas facere non præsumat."

Let no one held under servile or colonizing conditions be admitted to church honours, in violation of the statutes of the Apostolic see; unless it be evident that he has been previously absolved therefrom by will or by deed. And if any bishop, being aware of such condition of the person so ordained, shall wilfully transgress by making such unlawful ordination, let him not presume to celebrate mass for the space of a year.

The colonial condition was in its origin different from the mere servile. The mancipium or manu captum was the servus or slave made in war the colonus, or husbandman, though, at the period at which we are arrived, he frequently was in as abject a condition, yet was so by a different process. St. Augustine, in cap. i. lib. x. De Civitate Dei, tells us, "Coloni dicuntur, qui conditionem debebant genitali solo propter agriculturam sub dominio possessorum." They are called colonists who owe their condition to their native land, under the dominion of its possessors.

The following history of various modes by which they became servants, is taken from the work De Gubernat. Dei, lib. v., by the good and erudite Salvianus, a priest, who died at Marseilles, about the year 484.

Nonnulli eorum de quibus loquimur,

cum domicilia

atque agellos suos pervasionibus perdunt, aut fatigati ab exactoribus. deserunt, quia tenere non possunt, fundos majorum expetunt, et coloni divitum fiunt. Aut sicut solent hi qui hostium terrore compulsi, ad castella se conferunt, aut qui perdito ingenuæ incolumitatis statu ad asylum aliquod desperatione confugiunt: ita et isti qui habere amplius vel sedem vel dignitatem suorum natalium non queunt, jugo se inquilinæ abjectionis addicunt: in hanc necessitatem redacti, ut exactores non facultatis tantum, set etiam conditionis suæ, atque exultantes non a rebus tantum suis, sed etiam a seipsis, ac perdentes secum omnia sua, et rerum proprietate careant, et jus libertatis amittant. * * Illud gravius et acerbius, quod additur huic malo servilius malum. Nam suscipiuntur advenæ, fiunt præjudicio habitationis indigenæ, et quos suscipiunt ut extraneos et alienos, incipiunt habere quasi proprios: quos esse constat ingenuos, vertunt in servos.

*

Some of those, when they lose their dwellings and their little fields by invasion, or leave them, being worried by exactions, as they can no longer hold them, seek the grounds of the larger proprietors, and become the colonists of the wealthy. Or, as is usual with those who are driven off by the fear of enemies, and take refuge in the castles,

or who, having lost their state of safe freedom, fly to some asylum in despair: so they who can no longer have the place or the dignity derived from their birth, subject themselves to the abject yoke of the sojourner's lot; reduced to such necessity, that they are stripped not only of their property, but also of their rank; going into exile not only from what belongs to them but from their very selves, and with themselves losing all that they had, they are bereft of any property in things and lose the very right of liberty. more degrading injury is added to this evil. For they are received as strangers, they become inhabitants bereft of the rights of inhabitants; they who receive them as foreigners and aliens begin to treat them as property, and change into slaves those who, evidently, were free.

A

In this picture of the colonist, we may find the outline of the villain of a later age; and in the several enactments and regulations of succeeding legislators and councils, we shall discover the changes which servitude underwent previous to its total extinction in Europe.

Flodoardin, c. 28, History of the church of Rheims, gives us the will of St. Remi, its bishop, who baptized Clovis, upon his conversion in 496, and who was still living in the year 550. This document grants freedom to some of the colonists belonging to that church and retains others in service.

Du Cange says (Art. Colonus) that though in several instances the condition of the colonists was as abject as that of slaves, yet generally they were in a better position. Erant igitur colon mediæ conditionis inter ingenuos seu liberos et servos.

LESSON VIII.

FROM the fact that the slaves of this era were of the same colour and other physical qualities of their masters; from their great number, and consequently little value, their condition. became attended with extremely diverse circumstances; so various were, therefore, the relations between them and the master, that it would now be impossible, perhaps, to give an accurate history of their various castes. These facts should be kept in mind, lest we mistake, and find confusion, where distinction was sufficiently clear and obvious,