They must obey his will. Way over across the Syrian desert, in the land where the Assyrians lived, almost at the end of the world, Yahveh still has sway. The great city of Nineveh, the home of Israel's former enemy, might be overthrown in an instant if Yahveh only wished.

As Ewald has said, the object of the book is to teach not only that Yahveh is the one true God and that all others are false, but undoubtedly its greatest aim is to show that Yahveh is a merciful God, that his mercy is "boundless and free" to all who are submissive. Dr. Abbott says: "I cannot but regard as the main object of the book, and at the same time the evidence of its inspiration, its teaching not only of the wideness of the power of God, but the wideness of His mercy; its lesson that God cares not only for Jonah, but for little children, and even for cattle. I think there is no book in the Old Testament which so effectually

satirizes the Pharisaic narrowness, nor on the whole so effectually presents the

'Wideness of Gods mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea.

Extract from a letter.

Yahveh is not only the god of the Hebrews but of every one who will accept him. The sailors who cried in vain to other gods were saved only when they turned to Yahveh; the heathen Ninevites, whose wickedness reached to heaven, repented and they shared equally with the Hebrews in the protection and blessings which Yahveh alone could provide. Repentance would bring salvation not to the Hebrews alone, but to every person, whether in the far west in Tarshish of Spain, or in the far east in Nineveh; wherever there was repentance to Yahveh there was his love. Jeremiah xviii. 8 says, “If that nation concerning whom I have spoken, turn from their

"Are ye

evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." And the eloquent shepherd of Tekoa cries out, not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith Yahveh " (Amos ix. 7).

To teach this lesson was the object of the little book of Jonah, a lesson which once learned, broadened the religious thoughts of the people until they recognized not only the Jew, but the stranger at the end of the world, whoever he might be, as a child of God. It may be partly due to this little story that the Hebrew religion became a suitable foundation upon which Jesus built the Christian Church which has been of such service to all mankind. Although the book of Jonah may not be what the Christian world has thought, although not a word of it may record accurate history, who can say that the book has not been of infinitely greater value in teaching the Israelites that the god, whom to-day half the world worships,

is more than a local god, as was Baal or Ra or Assur, but the great omnipotent, omniscient, ever present, merciful God, the creator and ruler of the entire universe?

VIII.

OBJECTIONS.

I-THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS.

MANY Christians who are anxious to retain the traditional view of the book of Jonah will say: Jesus referred to the prophet, and would he have done so if the story were not true? A consideration of the New Testament references to Jonah, which are added here for the sake of easy reference, is essential.

"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale (sea-monster); so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nine