SOURCE: A preface to The Life of Las Casas: "The Apostle of the Indies," George Bell and Sons, 1890, pp. v-xv.

In the following excerpt, from a biography originally published in 1867, Helps presents a laudatory characterization of Las Casas as a historian, philanthropist, and a highly original thinker.

The life of Las Casas appears to me one of the most interesting, indeed I may say the most interesting, of all those that I have ever studied; and I think it is more than the natural prejudice of a writer for his hero, that inclines me to look upon him as one of the most remarkable personages that has ever appeared in history. It is well known that he has ever been put in the foremost rank of philanthropists; but he had other qualifications which were also extraordinary. He was not a mere philanthropist, possessed only with one idea. He...