resents and resists all wrong—but no one is so indebted to its merciful and equitable reign as woman. From Christianity woman has derived her moral and social influence—yes, almost her very existence as a social being. The mind of woman, which many of the philosophers, legislators, and sages of antiquity doomed to inferiority and imbecility, was developed and granted intellectual freedom by Christianity. Christianity has a chequered record with respect to slavery. It has not always stood for abolition. But it has always taught amelioration. The New Testament clearly permitted slavery, but only with the master and the subject both brothers in Christ. In an empire which was literally half slave and half free with an unbridgeable gulf between, such brotherhood was drastic. And when a noble Christian, Perpetua, bent over and kissed her slave girl before both were gored to death as Christian martyrs, she was kissing the institution of slavery goodbye. When a bondman became a bishop of Rome it was becoming quite apparent that there were neither bond nor free in Christ. When black African slavery again raised its ugly head in modern times, it was banished from the British Empire by the relentless persistence of a Christ motivated Wilberforce. And while the churches in the United States did not always stand unequivocally for abolition, there is no question that, as Beardsley remarks: It must be admitted that the Church as an organization had little to do directly in bringing about this result, yet we must never forget that behind the public events and issues of the time there was the moral consciousness of the American people which was a determining factor in this mighty conflict. Slavery met its deathblow at the hands of a Christian civilization, and but for a quickened Christian consciousness this withering curse might still be upon us. What George Washington Carver said of the Methodist Simmons College, which he attended, could be said of Christian institutions generally: ―It was the place where I first discovered that I was a human being.‖ And speaking of the Methodists, we are reminded that Henry Clay, when he heard that the Methodist Episcopal Church had
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