I say: If the _theory_ of Christianity is to take credit from the _history_ of Christendom, it must also receive discredit.

Taking in the whole system of nuns and celibates, and the doctrine which sustains it, the root of which is apostolic, I doubt whether any balance of credit remains over from this side of Christian history.

I am well aware that the democratic doctrine of "the equality of souls" has a _tendency_ to elevate women,--and the poorer orders too; but this is not the whole of actual Christianity, which is a very heterogeneous mass.
2.

Again: the modern doctrine, by aid of which West Indian slavery has been exterminated, is often put forward as Christian; but I had always discerned that it was not Biblical, and that, in respect to this great triumph, undue credit has been claimed for the fixed Biblical and authoritative doctrine.

As I have been greatly misunderstood in my first edition, I am induced to expand this topic.