BEFORE THE RESTORATION.

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tribunal of the hereditary bondman. To this day, in some CHAP -

countries -where negro slavery exists, Popery appears in ad--

vantageous contrast to other forms of Christianity. It isnotorious that the antipathy between the European andAfrican races is by no means so strong at Rio Janeiro as atWashington. In our own country this peculiarity of theRoman Catholic system produced, during the middle ages,many salutary effects. It is true that, shortly after the battleof Hastings, Saxon prelates and abbots were violently de-posed, and that ecclesiastical adventurers from the Continentwere intruded by hundreds into lucrative benefices. Yeteven then pious divines of Norman blood raised their voicesagainst such a violation of the constitution of the Church,refused to accept mitres from the hands of the Conqueror,and charged him, on the peril of his soul, not to forget thatthe vanquished islanders were his fellow Christians. Thefirst protector whom the English found among the dominantcaste was Archbishop Anselm. At a time when the Englishname was a reproach, and when all the civil and militarydignities of the kingdom were supposed to belong exclusivelyto the countrymen of the Conqueror, the despised racelearned, with transports of delight, that one of themselves,Nicholas Breakspear, had been elevated to the papal throne,and had held out his foot to be kissed by ambassadors sprungfrom the noblest houses of Normandy. It was a national aswell as a religious feeling that drew great multitudes to theshrine of Becket, the first Englishman who, since the Con-quest, had been terrible to the foreign tyrants. A successorof Becket was foremost among those who obtained thatcharter which secured at once the privileges of the Normanbarons and of the Saxon yeomanry. How great a part theRoman Catholic ecclesiastics subsequently had in the aboli-tion of villenage we learn from the unexceptionable testimonyof Sir Thomas Smith, one of the ablest Protestant counsellors