Just as the seventh circuit was completed, Joshua, as he had been commanded, cried out in the hearing of the Israelites, "Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city. And the city shall be accursed," (devoted to utter destruction,) even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. And ye, in any wise," (that is, with the utmost carefulness and vigilance,) "keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord."

As soon as Joshua had uttered these words, the trumpets once more sounded; and an universal shout bursting forth from the hosts of the Israelites, the walls of the city suddenly fell down to their very foundations. An entrance was open on all sides; and the encircling thousands rushing in, the dreadful work of extermination began. Resistance was in vain. With the exception of Rahab and her kindred-all of whom, together with her goods, were conveyed by the spies in safety near the Israelitish camp, according to the command of Joshua-none were

spared. Men and women, the young and the old, the oxen and sheep, with every living thing, were put to death. The silver and the gold, the vessels of brass and of iron, taken by the conquerors, not as their own spoils of victory, but as consecrated to the Lord, were deposited in his treasury, to be devoted to his service. Every thing else was then consumed in the general conflagration to which Jericho was devoted, and which completed the entire destruction of the city and its inhabitants.

This awful event was intended by God to furnish a striking proof to his people, and indeed to all who should become acquainted with it, of his abhorrence of the idolatry and other abominable wickedness of the Canaanites. Jericho had long deserved its fate. In destroying it, the Israelites acted under an express command of the Almighty. Nor is it any more difficult to be reconciled with the justice or the mercy of his character, that he should thus make use of the sword in the hands of men as the executioners of his vengeance, than of the power of the civil magistrate in putting to death the criminal who deserves it, or of the earthquake, the volcano, the whirlwind, or the famine, in inflicting upon the guilty the punishment which is due to their transgressions. He has a perfect right to choose his own instruments in taking away the lives of offenders. And

if in this, or any other such dreadful catastrophe, it may, at first sight, seem strange that tender infants, and those who have made comparatively but little progress in crime, should share the doom of the older and flagrant transgressor, God will see to it, that every thing is done in accordance with the strictest justice, and with all that is kind and benevolent in his character, with all that is long-suffering and gracious. Another state of being succeeds this. In the retributions of eternity, what is obscure here in his dealings with us, will be made plain; and all will find, at last, that they have no cause of complaint against their Maker. We daily see the innocent involved, more or less, in the sufferings that fall upon the guilty. Such is the mixed state of things in this world, and the economy of God's government over it. It is no more mysterious that the infants in Jericho should suffer, together with their parents, in being put to death, than that the child, at the present day, should have a sickly constitution, or be brought to a premature grave, on account of the vices of its father. Infants often endure intense bodily pain, and die of disease in excruciating agony. Their being put to death by the sword in Jericho, was only another mode of removing them out of this world. Their condition in the next, is decided by Him who is infinitely holy, just, and good.

We must remember, too, amid our reflections on the destruction of Jericho, that, while the Israelites, in completing it, acted under the explicit direction of God, they had no right to indulge any vindictive or malignant feelings, nor wantonly to inflict any unnecessary suffering upon the inhabitants. We have no evidence to lead us to

believe that they did so. The whole proceeding is to be regarded as essentially unlike the common kinds of warfare; nor does it furnish, if viewed in its true light, any justification of them. We should never forget, that the spirit of hatred, of revenge, of retaliation, or of taking pleasure in the sufferings of others, is always wrong. We may be called upon, by the providence of God, in the various relations of life, to punish transgressors. But while doing this in obedience to rightful authority, whether human or divine, and while exercising a proper abhorrence of the offence, we should cherish nothing like malicious resentment against the individual, but regard him with pity and compassion, and avoid all that tends to provoke his anger, or aggravate the sufferings which strict justice demands.

This same spirit, too, should pervade our conversation, when we find it necessary to speak of the faults, or the crimes of others. Let the truth, however severe, be spoken in love; under the influence of candor; without exaggeration;

always, and only, to do good; and remembering that it is a fellow-sinner whom we feel it our duty to censure.

CHAPTER VII.

A moral lesson to the Israelites in the destruction of Jericho. Their attack upon Ai unsuccessful, and the reason of it. The offender detected.

"By faith," we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about seven days." Joshua and the Israelites believed the divine declaration with regard to this strange event, and scrupulously performed the conditions on which it depended.

It was to them another illustrious display of the faithfulness and power of Jehovah. They saw in it the need of relying on his arm for success in the arduous enterprise which was before them. In the exercise of a simple faith in God, they did that which to all human appearance seemed to have the least connection with the anticipated result; and it was miraculously brought about in the very way, and at the very