HE following pages are an expansion of a lecture delivered at the Manchester Athenaeum, and the author has to plead, as his justification for printing them, the wishes of some of his audience on that occasion. They treat of the subject stated on the title-page; not of the justice or wisdom of the present war, nor of the conduct of any American party. The argument is as much historical as theological ; and the question whether the Book which Christendom regards as the rule of conduct is favorable to Slavery or to Free Labor, to the degradation or to the independence and dignity of the laboring class, is interesting to the statesman and economist, as well as to the divine. It will be remembered that we have no longer to deal with the question between immediate and gradual emancipation, as to which the greatest enemies of Slavery may fairly differ; nor with the excuses which may be made for those who have inherited a bad system not of their own creating, and which no reasonable man would desire to withhold. A complete change has of late taken place in the sentiments and language of the Southern States on the subject of Slavery. That which was regarded and spoken of by Washington and the statesmen of his time as a transient evil, is now declared to be a permanent good, and not only a permanent good, but the best of all social institutions. Mr. Stephens, the VicePresident of the Slave States, avows that “the foundations of the and civilization. (1.) The same revenge was taken for blood however shed, whether wilfully or accidentally, which confounded men's notion of crime, and in fact multiplied murders. (2) When covetousness overcame revenge, and the slain kinsman was not very dear, a sum of money (called by our German ancestors the wehrgeld) was taken for his blood instead of the blood of the slayer; and this practice grew into a regular system, which destroyed the distinction between crime and civil injury, took away the sanctity of human life, the foundation-stone of civilization, and moreover sharpened barbarous divisions of class, since the price of a man's blood was assessed in the tariff according to his rank. (3.) Revenge became hereditary, and blood feuds arose between family and family or clan and clan, which filled the world with slaughter. Such blood feuds were common in the Highlands while the old clans existed, and they are still common among the wild tribes of Syria and in other parts of the East. Now (1) the law of Moses expressly distinguishes wilful murder from accidental homicide, and confines the office of the Avenger of Blood to wilful murder. “And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. . . . . Or if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay.him. But if he thrust him of hatred, or hurl at him by laying of wait, that he die; or in enmity smite him with his hand, that he die: he that smote him shall surely be put to death; for he is a murderer: the revenger of blood shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him. But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him anything without laying of wait, or with any stone, wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him, that he die, and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm : then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments: and the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high-priest, which was anointed with the holy oil.”” (2.) The taking of money as a satisfaction for blood is strictly forbidden. “Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest.” f (3.) Hereditary blood feuds are forbidden with equal strictness.; “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” By providing judges in all the tribes to do equal justice between man and man,S and by calling the congregation to judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood, Moses secures the speedy departure of the need of private revenge and the speedy advent of a reign of public law. The right of Asylum is another primitive institution which is recognized by the Law of Moses; and which was not without use in its day, as the history of the Middle Ages, no less than that of the more ancient barbarism, can bear witness. It gave vengeance time for reflection, and in default of a magistrate armed with sufficient powers, helped to prevent society from becoming a slaughter-house. But this institution also was liable to the grossest abuses. It sheltered the wilful murderer as well as him who had killed a man accidentally or in self-defence, and in the case of wilful murder led to a