Liberty or Slavery; the Great National Question.

THREE PRIZE ESSAYS

ON

AMERICAN SLAVERY.

"THE TRUTH IN LOVE."

BOSTON:
CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION.
1857.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
SEWALL HARDING,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBRIDGE:
ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.

PREMIUM OFFERED.

A benevolent individual, who has numerous friends and acquaintances bothNorth and South, and who has had peculiar opportunities for learning thestate and condition of all sections of the nation, perceiving the dangerof our national Institutions, and deeply impressed with a sense of theimportance, in this time of peril, of harmonizing Christian men throughthe country, by kind yet faithful exhibitions of truth on the subjectnow agitating the whole community, offered a premium of $100 for thebest Essay on the subject of Slavery, fitted to influence the great bodyof Christians through the land.

The call was soon responded to by nearly fifty writers, whosemanuscripts were examined by the distinguished committee appointed bythe Donor, whose award has been made, as their certificate, hereannexed, will show.

PREMIUM AWARDED.

The undersigned, appointed a Committee to award a premium of one hundreddollars, offered by a benevolent individual, for the best Essay on thesubject of Slavery, "adapted to receive the approbation of EvangelicalChristians generally," have had under examination more than fortycompeting manuscripts, a large number of them written with much ability.They have decided to award the prize to the author of the Essayentitled, "The Error and the Duty in regard to Slavery," whom theyfind, on opening the accompanying envelope, to be the Rev. R. B.Thurston, of Chicopee Falls, Mass.

They would also commend to the attention of the public, two of theremaining tracts, selected by the individual who offered the prize, andfor which he and others interested have given a prize of one hundreddollars each. One of these is entitled, "Friendly Letters to aChristian Slave-holder," by Rev. A. C. Baldwin, of Durham, Conn.; theother, "Is American Slavery an Institution which Christianity sanctionsand will perpetuate?" by Rev. Timothy Williston, of Strongsville, Ohio.

Asa D. Smith,
Mark Hopkins,
Theodore Frelinghuysen.

May, 1857.

CONTENTS.