to bring back word about the defences of the city of Jericho, which was the first walled city that opposed their onward march.

The men, having been aided by a woman named 'Rahab,' came back to Josue, saying, 'The Lord hath delivered all this land into our hands; for all the inhabitants thereof are overthrown with fear.'

Josue now made a proclamation to the people: 'Be ye sanctified; for to-morrow the Lord will do wonders among you.' And he said to the priests, Take up the ark of the covenant, and go before the people.' And they obeyed his commands, and took it up and walked before them. And it came to pass, as God had promised, that as soon as they came into the Jordan and their feet were dipped in part of the water, which was then at the full, being harvest-time, the waters that came down from above stood in one place, and those that were beneath ran down into the Dead Sea till they wholly failed. The people thus marched over against Jericho, and the priests that carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood girded upon the dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the people passed over the channel that was dried up. Josue commanded twelve great stones to be set up as a memorial of their miraculous passage, for each tribe a stone; and the place where this was done was called Galgal, which afterwards became a place of note. And on the day on which the children of Israel first ate of the corn of the land the manna ceased.

Jericho was close shut up for fear of the children of Israel, and no man durst go out or come in. And the Lord said to Josue, 'Behold, I have given into thy hands Jericho, and the king thereof and all the fighting men.' The priests were commanded to carry the ark round the city for six days in succession, the armed men going before it, and the rest of the common people following. Not a shout was to be made, or a voice or a sound to be heard, except that of the seven trumpets which were blown by seven priests going before the ark. On the seventh day they rose up early and went round the city seven times, and the seventh time Josue said to all Israel, 'Shout, for the Lord hath delivered the city to you; let this city be anathema to the Lord, and all things that are in it. Only let Rahab live, with all that are with her in the house; for she hid the messengers whom we sent.' The people raised a shout and the trumpets sounded, and the walls of the city forthwith fell down, so that every man went up at the place that was over against him, and they took the city. Rahab alone was saved. The city they burned and everything that was in it, except the gold and silver, and vessels of brass and iron, which were consecrated to the treasury.

6

St. Paul mentions Rahab as an example of faith in the power of God to fulfil His promises: By faith Rahab perished not with the unbelievers, receiving the spies with peace' (Heb. xi. 31).

§ 41. Josue's last words and death.

God had fulfilled His word to Josue, and had been with him as He had been with Moses. Israel was now in possession of the land promised

G

to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thirty-one kings had been slain, and their people put to the sword, and the land portioned out to the twelve tribes. 'The tribe of Levi had no possession, for the Lord God of Israel was his possession, as He spoke to them.' Josue had appointed cities of refuge for whosoever might kill his neighbour unawares to flee to; he had read the blessings from Mount Garizim, and the curses from Mount Ebal, and had carried the law of Moses into effect. 'And not so much

as one word which God had promised to perform to them was made void, but all came to pass.' Before his death he gathered all the tribes of Israel together in Sichem, and he spoke thus to the people :

LAST WORDS OF JOSUE.

Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Your fathers dwelt of old on the other side of the river, Thare the father of Abraham, and Nachor; and they served strange gods.

And I took your father Abraham from the borders of Mesopotamia, and brought him into the land of Chanaan; and I multiplied his seed.

And gave him Isaac; and to him again I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave to Esau Mount Seir for his possession; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.

arose and fought against Israel. And he sent and called for Baalam son of Beor, to curse you.

And I would not hear him; but on the contrary I blessed you by him, and I delivered you out of his hand.

And you passed over the Jordan, and you came to Jericho. And the men of that city fought against you, the Amorrhite, and the Pherezite, and the Chanaanite, and the Hethite, and the Gergesite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hands.

And I sent before you hornets; and

And I sent Moses and Aaron, and II drove them out from their places, the struck Egypt with many signs and wonders.

And I brought you and your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen, as far as the Red Sea.

And the children of Israel cried to the Lord; and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them. Your eyes saw all that I did in Egypt, and you dwelt in the wilderness a long time.

And I brought you into the land of the Amorrhite, who dwelt beyond the Jordan. And when they fought against you, I delivered them into your hands, and you possessed their land, and slew them. And Balac, son of Sephor, king of Moab,

The people answered and said: God forbid that we should leave the Lord and serve strange gods.

The Lord our God, He brought us and our fathers out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and did very great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the

two kings of the Amorrhites, not with thy sword nor with thy bow.

And I gave you a land in which you had not laboured, and cities to dwell in which you built not, vineyards and oliveyards which you planted not.

Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him with a perfect and most sincere heart; and put away the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, you have your choice: choose this day that which pleaseth you, whom you would rather serve, whether the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia, or the gods of the Amorrhites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

way by which we journeyed, and among all the people through whom we passed.

And He hath cast out all the nations, the Amorrhite, the inhabitant of the land into which we are come. Therefore we will serve the Lord, for He is our God.

6

Josue said to the people, 'You will not be able to serve the Lord; for He is a holy God, mighty and jealous, and will not forgive your wickedness and your sins. If you leave the Lord and serve strange gods, He will turn and afflict you, and will destroy you after all the good He hath done to you.' And the people said to Josue, 'No; it shall not be as thou sayest, but we will serve the Lord.' And Josue said to the people, 'You are witnesses that you yourselves have chosen the Lord to serve Him;' and they answered, We are witnesses.' Josue took a great stone and set it under the oak that was in the Sanctuary of the Lord; and he said to all the people, 'Behold, this stone shall be a testimony unto you, that it hath heard all the words of the Lord which He hath spoken unto you; lest perhaps hereafter you will deny it, and lie to the Lord.' After this, Josue, who is called Jesus in the Acts of the Apostles, died, being 110 years old, and they buried him in his own possession, in Mount Ephraim. The bones also of Joseph, which had been brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Sichem, in the field which Jacob bought for a hundred lambs from the sons of Hemor.

The good land flowing with milk and honey promised to the Hebrew people, which Josue brought his people in to possess, is a figure of the Heaven into the possession of which Jesus Christ will bring all the Christian people who faithfully follow Him.

Fourth Subdivision.-The Judges of Israel (B.C. 1410 to B.C. 1075).

§ 42. Israel falls away to idolatry after the death of Josue. The children of Israel served the Lord all the days of Josue, and of the princes of the people who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done in Israel; but when these living witnesses died away, and there arose others who had not seen the works that He had done for Israel, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Moses had said, 'I know that after my death you will do iniquity, and will soon turn aside from the way which I have commanded you, and evils will come upon you' (Deut. xxxi. 29). They left the Lord the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt, and they followed after strange gods, Baal and Astaroth.

An angel of the Lord had spoken to the people at Galgal, saying:

THE ANGEL'S WARNING.

I made you go out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land for which I swore to your fathers; and I promised that I would not make void My covenant with you for ever.

On condition that you should not make a league with the inhabitants of this land, but should throw down their altars; and you would not hear My voice why have you done this?

Wherefore I would not destroy them from before your face: that you may

| have enemies, and their gods may be your ruin.

For this nation hath made void My covenant, which I had made with their fathers, and hath despised to hearken to My voice.

I also will not destroy the nations which Josue left, when he died.

That through them I may try Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord, and walk in it, as their fathers kept it, or no.

The children of Israel therefore dwelt in the midst of the nations whom they ought to have utterly destroyed, and the people of the land, as Moses had foretold, became a snare to them, and drew them off to serve their idols, Baalim and Astaroth. This brought heavy judgments upon them, yet the Lord their God remembered His mercy, and from time to time gave them deliverers, who rose up and judged the people, and restored the faith and worship of the God of Israel. These were the Judges of Israel, the most famous of whom were Gedeon and Sampson.

§ 43. Gedeon, one of the Judges of Israel.

It was on one of these occasions, after Israel had sinned against the Lord by following after strange gods, and when they had been humbled exceedingly in the sight of their old enemy the Madianites, that they cried to the Lord for help against the Madianites.

God sent His angel to appear to Gedeon as he was thrashing wheat by his father's wine-press, and the angel said, 'The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men.' Gedeon answered, 'If the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are His miracles which our fathers have told us of, saying, "The Lord brought us up out of Egypt?" But now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of Madian.' The same night the angel appeared to him, and commanded him to destroy the grove and altar of Baal. Gedeon, fearing to do this by day, did it all early in the morning.

When the men of the town saw the altar destroyed and the grove cut down, they said one to another, 'Who hath done this?' And when they were told that it was Gedeon, the son of Joas, they came to Joas and said, 'Bring out thy son that he may die, for he hath destroyed the altar of Baal, and hath cut down his grove.' Joas answered, 'Are you the avengers of Baal, that you fight for him? If he be a god, let him revenge himself on him that hath cast down his altar.'

From this day the spirit of the Lord came upon Gedeon, and he sounded a trumpet, and sent messengers to the tribes of Aser, Zabulon, and Nepthali, to follow him. Gedeon asked a sign, and said to God, ‘If Thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as Thou hast said, I will put this fleece of wool on the floor; and if there be dew upon the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as Thou hast said, Thou wilt deliver Israel.' It was so. And rising before day, he wrung the fleece and filled a vessel with the dew. On the following night Gedeon prayed that the fleece only might be dry and all the ground wet with dew; and it was so.

Gedeon, on the strength of these signs, proceeded to the fight. But God came to him and instructed him to reduce his followers to the number of three hundred.

In the evening before the battle, Gedeon and his servant stole in disguise into the camp of Madian, and there he heard a Madianite relate to his comrade, saying, 'I dreamt a dream, and it seemed to me as if a

hearth-cake of barley-bread rolled and came down into the camp of Madian, and when it was come to a tent, it struck it and beat it down flat to the ground.' He to

whom he spoke answered, This is nothing else but the sword of Gedeon, the son of Joas, a man of Israel.' When Gedeon heard this he adored, and returned to the camp of Israel, and said, 6 Arise, for the Lord hath delivered the camp of Madian into our hands.'

Gedeon attacked the Madianite camp the same night. The Madianites were seized with a panic and fled, and their overthrow was complete.

The fleece of Gedeon is referred to as a type of the Blessed Virgin in the Vespers of the Circumcision, 'When Thou wast born in an unspeakable manner from a Virgin, the Scriptures were fulfilled. Thou camest down as the dew into the fleece; we praise Thee, O our God.'

§ 44. Sampson. His riddle to the wedding guests.

The first act of Sampson when he grew up was to form acquaintance with a young Philistine maiden, and, contrary to the law of Moses and the remonstrance of his parents, he sought her for his wife. As he was going down to Tammatha with his father and mother to obtain his wife, a young lion out of the vineyards met him, raging and roaring. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Sampson, and he tore him as he would have torn a kid, though he had nothing in his hand.

Some days afterwards he went aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the mouth of the lion and a honeycomb. Sampson stopped and took some of it in his hands, and went on eating till he met his father and mother, to whom he gave of