noiselessly effaced first the distinction between Norman and
Saxon, and then the distinction between master and slave. None
can venture to fix the precise moment at which either distinction
ceased. Some faint traces of the old Norman feeling might perhaps
have been found late in the fourteenth century. Some faint traces
of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious so
late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that institution ever,
to this hour, been abolished by statute.

It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the chief agent
in these two great deliverances was religion; and it may perhaps
be doubted whether a purer religion might not have been found a
less efficient agent. The benevolent spirit of the Christian
morality is undoubtedly adverse to distinctions of caste. But to
the Church of Rome such distinctions are peculiarly odious; for
they are incompatible with other distinctions which are essential
to her system. She ascribes to every priest a mysterious dignity
which entitles him to the reverence of every layman; and she does
not consider any man as disqualified, by reason of his nation or
of his family, for the priesthood. Her doctrines respecting the
sacerdotal character, however erroneous they may be, have
repeatedly mitigated some of the worst evils which can afflict
society. That superstition cannot be regarded as unmixedly
noxious which, in regions cursed by the tyranny of race over
race, creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race,
inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and
compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual
tribunal of the hereditary bondman. To this day, in some
countries where negro slavery exists, Popery appears in
advantageous contrast to other forms of Christianity. It is