(g.) Of Alfred the Great (reigned A. D. 871–901) the central testimony of history is that he was severely _just_. Despite of surroundings almost barbarous, he rose by dint of his irrepressible manliness to become the greatest legislator and scholar of his age, and so was able to lay the foundations for the best and truest glory of the English name. The common law of England and of the English-speaking world began its development under his hand. One fact is of itself a volume of testimony to the spirit of this ancient law. When after a long struggle Wilberforce brought the question before the English bench――Does English law sanction human bondage? the world heard the answer――_Never_. “Slaves can not breathe in England.” What moment they take in her pure air, they are free! The spirit of her law from the days of Alfred was justice and righteousness between a man and his neighbor. The laws of Moses were in Alfred’s eye; the spirit of those laws filled and fired his noble soul. It is currently said that the telling words which describe the needy as “_God’s poor_” are original (for our mother Saxon tongue) with him. Moses had reiterated the sentiment long ages before.――――Sir Matthew Hale has traced the influence of the Bible generally on the laws of England. Sismondi testifies that Alfred, in causing a republication of the Saxon laws, inserted several statutes taken from the code of Moses, to give new strength and cogency to the principles of morality. “Thus have the principles of the Mosaic code found their way to a greater or less extent into the jurisprudence of all civilized nations.” [Wines――p. 337.] It falls within our plan to speak briefly of the civil code of Moses _as a series of progressive revelations of God to man_.