"And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the people fled from the Philistines. But he stood in the midst of the plot, and defended it, and slew the Philistines; and the Lord wrought a great victory."

David reminds us of another hero of the Bible, Jonathan. Jonathan is one of the most noble, most heroic, and most lovable characters of the Bible, though we don't often think of him apart from others. This in itself indicates his nobility. Jonathan is selfless. He never thinks of himself first; it is always somebody else—whether his people, or his father, or his friend. No wonder David loved him; truer friend, more devoted friend, never lived. "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." With his father, Jonathan remained to the very last, though often he had been hurt and offended by him. Poor Saul had no more devoted, nor more sympathetic, nor more indulgent, follower. Jonathan died with his father for the honor of his house and his people. A true hero was Jonathan, and he showed it when in the early days of his father's war against the Philistines he forced the flight of the foe by a daring exploit. When the Philistine army was gathered at Michmas, Jonathan, accompanied by his armor-bearer, clambered up the rocks leading to an advanced post of the enemy, and slew twenty men. The suddenness and

the success of the feat terrified the foe, and they all flew in panic.

"Now it fell upon upon a day, that Jonathan the son of Saul said unto the young man that bore his armor: 'Come and let us go over to the Philistines' garrison, that is on yonder side.' But he told not his father. And the people knew not that Jonathan was gone.

"And Jonathan said to the young man that bore his armor: Come and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised; it may be that the Lord will work for us; for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few.' And his armor-bearer said unto him: 'Do all that is in thy heart; turn thee, behold I am with thee according to thy heart.' And both of them disclosed themselves unto the garrison of the Philistines; and the Philistines said: 'Behold Hebrews coming forth out of the holes where they hid themselves.' And the men of the garrison spoke to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, and said: 'Come up to us, and we will show you a thing.' And Jonathan said unto his armor-bearer: 'Come up after me; for the Lord hath delivered them into the hand of Israel.' And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armor-bearer after him; and they fell before Jonathan; and his armor-bearer slew them after him. And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were half a furrow's length in an acre of land. And there was a trembling in the camp in the field, and among all the people; the garrison, and the spoilers, they also trembled; and the earth quaked; so it grew into a terror from God. And the watchmen of Saul in Gibeathbenjamin looked; and, behold, the multitude melted away, and they went hither and thither."

Jonathan did the deed regardless of peril and without noise or pretense. He was marked by the silence as well as the spontaneity of the true hero.

As we think of these heroes of the Bible, we can the better understand Jewish history. The Jew, it is often said, is not a fighter. This certainly is not true of the historic Jew. No war has produced greater heroism and endurance than the war of the Jews against the Romans. One need but think of the siege of Jerusalem, and the fortitude of the Jews in defending it, or of the little band of libertyloving men who held the fortress of Masada for some time after Jerusalem had fallen and who, realizing that they could resist no longer, their wall being on fire, resolved to die by their own hands, and to slay their wives and children, rather than become Roman slaves. The words of Eleazar, their leader, as recorded by his contemporary, Josephus, are among the most heroic ever spoken. "Since we long ago, my brave friends, resolved never to be slaves to the Romans, nor to any other than God Himself (who alone is the true and just Lord of all mankind), the time is now come that obliges us to carry out that resolve in act. Let us not at this crisis bring the reproach upon ourselves that, whereas we would not formerly undergo slavery without danger, we now together with slavery choose such punishments also as will be intolerable, if we fall alive into the power of the Romans. We were the very first of all that re

volted from them, and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us that it is still in our power to die nobly and in a state of freedom, which has not been the case of others who were conquered against their expectation. Let our wives die before they are outraged, and our children before they have tasted of slavery, and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually, and preserve our freedom as a noble end of our lives. While our hands are still at liberty, and have a sword in them, let them minister to us in our glorious design! Let us die before we become slaves of our enemies, and let us go out of the world with our children and wives in a state of freedom!"

In such a spirit the heroes of Masada died on the altar of liberty.

It is a matter of history that since then the Jews, both in war and in peace, have not been wanting in the heroic qualities. The prototype of such heroic traits and deeds we find in the war heroes of the Bible.

THE WAR POETRY OF THE BIBLE

CONCERNING the relation of war to poetry, there exists a singular difference of opinion. Some think that war stimulates poetry, others that it hampers it. Mr. Edmund Gosse, for instance, writing in the year 1915, on "War Poetry in France," remarks that "there is a quality in war, as there is in religion, which does not lend itself kindly to the art of verse," and he adds that as a matter of critical experience, the lyrical triumphs of martial and religious poetry are few." On the other hand, Mr. Gosse himself must admit that the present war has given birth to a great deal of poetry, some of it of a very high order. Mr. Frederic Harrison, on the other hand, in his Obiter Scripta, observes that this vast war- this stirring of the deeps in man's soul is calling out much love of poetry, and not a little new poetry, as is ever the case, and he proceeds to give credit to the Revolution of 1789 and to Napoleon's wars for the poetry of Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats.

We shall not enter here into a discussion of this difference of opinion on the relation of war and poetry. But as far as the Bible is concerned, the

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