massacres, assigned by Scripture to the vengeance of God. But what was the guilt of Canaan, and could nations born to the worship of other deities fulfil the commands of Jehovah? The men with whom Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in friendly intercourse, before the departure for Egypt, were intellectually and morally superior to the followers of Joshua. The children of Heth were courteous, and even generous in their treatment of Abraham when desirous of purchasing a family burying-ground;1 Abimelech disclosed, on his restoration of Sarah, a sense of honour unknown to the Hebrew patriarchs; 2 and Melchisedec, king of Salem and priest of Eliun, the most High, commanded the respectful reverence of Abraham. Had the memory and example of these men so utterly perished throughout the land that no redeeming virtue might save the doomed inhabitants from destruction? We answer-the Canaanites had no historian, and are therefore condemned unheard through the records of the enemies who coveted their possessions; and their miraculous destruction is quite as improbable as a divine massacre of Chinese and Indians of the same generation, for nonconformity to the laws, customs, and religion of Moses.

The war of extermination was, however, waged in the name of Jehovah, whose thirst for blood interrupted the routine of the solar system, to facilitate the slaughter of the Amorites. The fabulous origin of this and other miracles is, however, disclosed in such passages as this: ' And Jehovah was with Judah, and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of 1 Gen xxiii. 2 Gen. xx. 3 Gen. xiv. 18-24. 4 Josh. x. 12, 13.

iron 'as if any addition to the military resources of the enemy could baulk the purpose of Him who suspended the law of gravitation that the sun and moon might stand still in the valley of Ajalon.'

The military genius of Joshua accomplished victories which Scripture attributes to faith in the gospel of blood, and a successful career of rapine and murder placed the Israelites, at his death, in possession of important positions in the land of Canaan. But the next generation, having disclosed symptoms of humanity by making tributaries of, instead of murdering the Canaanites, the angel of Jehovah appeared to denounce this merciful view of sacred warfare, and declare that He would not drive out the remaining inhabitants, but leave them as thorns in their sides, and their gods as a snare to the children of Israel. Is not this the pious fiction of the author of Judges, accounting for failure in the promises of Jehovah through the imaginary sins of the people?

6

We read, And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites, and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.'3 In other words, the Israelites discovered the wisdom of consolidating their conquests through friendly alliances, resulting in a fusion of races and consequent community of gods.

In studying the map of Canaan, or overlooking the valley of the Jordan from the central heights of Palestine, and recalling the numerous warlike tribes which occupied the land before the Hebrews, we need not 3 Judg. iii. 5, 6.

1 Judg. i. 19.

2

Judg. ii. 1-3.

the eye of a Moltke to detect the impossibility of its complete subjugation by a barbarous tribe issuing from the desert with no greater resources than possessed by the Israelites. The only hope of permanently retaining partial conquests, therefore, lay in political alliances; and if the Hebrews had adopted and persevered in this course, instead of again trusting to the supernatural, they might have escaped the appalling future of a Peculiar People, doomed to calamity from the age of the Philistines to the Russian atrocities.

But Hebrew fellowship with native tribes vanishes, when named, from the pages of the sacred annalist, and the Israelites stand alone throughout the appalling vicissitudes of more than three centuries, alternating intervals of independence with periods of subjection to hostile chiefs and tribes, or of precarious existence, hiding, as hunted animals, in the dens and caves of the mountains.

Intermittent faith in the supernatural was sustained by Shofetim or Judges who, believing themselves inspired, were guilty of treachery, assassination, and even human sacrifice, in the name of Jehovah.

The story of Samson, the Semitic Hercules, reads as a page from mythology or a chapter from the Arabian Nights. An angel with a terrible countenance predicted his birth, and consecrated him a Nazarite with unshaven head. On attaining to inspired manhood, he fell in love with a pretty Philistine of Timnath, to whom his pious parents objected as a designing stranger, but they did not know that it was of the Lord. Samson, however, induced them to accompany him to the vine

Judg. xiii.-xvi.

yards of Timnath. On the journey he met a lion, but the spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon him, and he rent him, without any weapon, as he would a kid.' Samson's suit prospered, and after a time, returning by the same rocky pass to claim his bride, he saw the carcase of the lion, and, behold, it contained a swarm of bees and honey.'

This remarkable incident suggested a conundrum : 'Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth sweetness,' which he proposed for solution to his thirty companions at the wedding festival, within the appointed days of the feast, subject to a forfeit, on either side, of thirty sheets and thirty changes of garments.' The wedding guests were puzzled, and, being genuine Philistines, threatened the unhappy bride with untimely death unless she enticed her husband to disclose the answer to this exasperating riddle. The foolish woman, instead of trusting to her natural protector, wept for seven days, which proved so trying to Samson that he was, at length, beguiled of his secret, and the truculent thirty accordingly solved the enigma ' on the seventh day before the sun went down.' And the spirit of Jehovah came upon Samson,' who forthwith murdered and robbed thirty men of Ashkelon to provide the stipulated forfeit for the expounders of the riddle; thus establishing by scriptural precedent, that debts of honour are more binding than the sixth and eighth commandments.

Enraged with his Philistine connections, Samson now abandoned his wife and returned to his father's house at Zorah. But his heart was still in the vineyards of Timnath, where we find him, at the wheat

harvest, bringing a kid as a present for his wife, who had, however, been meanwhile given by her father to one of his thirty companions, under the impression that she had been finally deserted by her Hebrew husband. Exasperated by his disappointment, Samson caught three hundred foxes, tied them tail to tail with lighted firebrands, and drove them, with disastrous results, into the cornfields, olive-yards, and vineyards. In revenge for their lost produce, the Philistines burnt Samson's wife, but he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter, and went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.'

Then came the Philistines to the men of Judah— who were apparently living in contentment under their rule, demanded the surrender of Samson, and received him from three thousand of his countrymen bound with two new cords, which he forthwith burst as burnt flax, picked up the jaw-bone of an ass, and slew a thousand men therewith.' Famished with thirst, Samson prayed to Jehovah for water, and forthwith a miraculous stream gushed forth from the divinely cloven jaw, or from a hollow place in Lehi, it matters not which to those who, in accepting miracles, believe all equally possible to the Deity.

We next hear of Samson visiting one of the harlots of Gaza, and escaping from the Philistines by carrying off the gates of the city. To no purpose, however, for he forthwith becomes the lover of mercenary Delilah, who, after three unsuccessful attempts, at length learned the secret of his great strength, cut off his miraculous locks, and sold him to the lords of the Philistines for 5,500 shekels of silver. With the loss of