24 MAY 1913, Page 14

THE CRIME OF SLAVERY.

[To THE EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—You are almost too ready to allow an advantage to your opponents. If we study what may be called the method of Christ and His apostles we cannot fail to see how often they accepted, or drew their teaching from, institutions which we have now either outgrown or which we hope to outgrow. Christ taught that a king should calculate the chances of a campaign before engaging in one, but He does not thereby endorse the horrors of war. St. Paul instructs masters as to their duty to their slaves, but reserves his own opinion of slavery. This is surely the essence of the Gospel—first the gradual perfecting of the Christian, then through him that of the world in its institutions.—I am, Sir, &c.,