Every reader of the Bible is aware, that six of these cities were invested with the special right of affording refuge and protection to a certain class of criminals. The Jewish doctors maintain that this privilege, somewhat limited, belonged to all the forty-eight; for, being sacred, no act of revenge or mortal retaliation was permitted to take place within their gates. Into the six cities of refuge, properly so called, the manslayer could demand admittance, whether the Levites were disposed to receive him or not; and on the same ground he was entitled to gratuitous lodging and maintenance, until his cause should be determined by competent judges. It is added, that they could exercise a discretionary power as to the reception of a homicide into any other of their cities, and even in respect to the hire which they might demand for the house used by him during temporary residence. But the institution of Moses, afterward completed by Joshua, affords no countenance to these rabbinical distinctions; and we have no reason whatever to believe that the benefit of asylum was granted to any Levitical town besides Hebron, Shechem, Ramoth, Bezer, Kedesh, and Golan.[31] As learning and the several professions connected with the knowledge of letters were confined almost exclusively the tribe of Levi, the distribution of its members throughout the whole of the Hebrew commonwealth was attended with many advantages. Every Levitical city became at once a school and a seat of justice. There the language, the traditions, the history, and the laws of their nation were the constant subjects of study, pursued with that zeal and earnestness which can only arise from the feeling of a sacred obligation, combined with the impulse of an ardent patriotism. Within their walls were deposited copies of their religious, moral, and civil institutions; which it was their duty not only to preserve, but to multiply. They kept, besides, the genealogies of the tribes; in which they marked the lineage of every family who could trace their descent to the father of the faithful. Being carefully instructed in the law, and possessed of the annals of their people from the earliest days, they were well qualified to supply the courts with magistrates and scribes, men who were fitted not only to administer justice, but also to frame a record of all their decisions. It is perfectly clear that, in the reign of David and of the succeeding kings, the judges and other legal officers were selected from among the Levites; there being in those days not fewer than six thousand of this learned body who held such appointments.