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 Chapters from the Biblical Law. even though a compromise by payment of blood money had been effected. The law advanced step by step and did not attempt to correct abuses all at once. The notion of the sacredness of life and the abolition of the right of the avenger of the blood re quired centuries for its complete adoption by the people. It was only after the legis lative prohibitions and moral suasion of many ages had done their work that the old ideas of the wandering nomads were finally stamped out. And indeed a consideration of the records of the criminal courts of our own time will convince the student that the old love of the primitive man for fresh blood has not yet entirely disappeared. The Mosaic statute concludes with the words : "So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are; for blood, it defileth the land; and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it." This is an idea old beyond the memory and the records of mankind, that blood requires blood to be shed for it; but the biblical law gives it a turn that at taches a moral reason to it. " Defile not the land therefore which ye inhabit, wherein I dwell for I the Lord dwell among the chil dren of Israel." Thus far the text of the

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law in the 35th chapter of the book of Num bers. The other texts above alluded to supplement this text in some important par ticulars. The roads to the cities of refuge were carefully made so that the slayer could reach the city swiftly and without hindrance. (Deut. 19: 3.) And when he reached the city of refuge he had ' to appear before its elders at the city gate, the usual place of assembly, and state his case to them, where upon they took him into the city and gave him a place there to dwell among them. This formality required the slayer to make out a prima facie case of innocence, and thus enable the elders to receive him for mally and place him under the protection of the city of refuge. (Josh. 20 : 4.) If, after wards, the elders of the manslayer's city sent for him he had to be given up to them to stand trial for the crime. (Deut. 19: 12.)' Thus the ancient Mosaic Codes sought to impress upon the primitive Hebrew commu nities the doctrine of the right of man to life and liberty, a doctrine which has become commonplace in our days, but which in those days required not merely the wisdom of the lawgiver to make it fruitful, but also the sanction of the divine voice, and the fear of divine wrath.