Just One Sharp Point?

If the length of time the slave trade
was legal and regulated proves anything
then let it show just one sharp point;
how much the depths of avarice,
or as The Bible puts it 'the love of money'*,
made us see our neighbour as our enemy,
whilst blinding us to their need for autonomy
and respect, much more than we ever needed to
for our comfort.

Since many of the early Christian converts 
were bought and sold, enslaved by Roman,
it is a shame more than words can express,
that later Christian slave owners
did not have the humility before God
and each other that their fore-bearers,
the converted Christian Roman slaves, had.

Such humility in those later eras
could not have stopped the spread of disease
but would have made modern life less rapacious,
and, for a while, made the world a better place.

*Paul's first letter to Timothy Ch 1 V 6, the full quote being 
'For the love of money is the root of all evil:
which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith,
and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.'.    .