repuired a journey of "six miles" from the centre to the outer circumference. Strenuously as Colenso resists the introduction of anything not written in so many terms in the text, provided it removes a difficulty, and consists with the veracity of Moses, he has no repugnance to its being done if it has an opposite effect. We might content ourselves here with asking him to prove the continuity of the camp, which is so essential to his argument, and which he has taken for granted. And this not only without a particle of evidence, but in the face of the explicit statements of the sacred record.

In Num. ii. comp. i. 52, 53, x. 14-28, the plan of Israel's encampment is minutely described. From this it appears that there were five distinct camps. One lay in the centre, and was formed by the Levites surrounding the tabernacle, ii. 17. Then four other camps, each embracing three tribes, were distributed around this toward the cardinal points of the compass. Now, the exterior of any one of these camps was 'without the camp.' Or what conceivable reason is there, ceremonial, sanitary, or of any other sort, why the ashes of the sacrifices might not be deposited in some 'clean place' outside of the Levitical camp? but the person or persons entrusted with them, and with the offal which was to be burned 'where the ashes are to be poured out,' must traverse the unoccupied space between this and some other of the camps, traverse that camp also, and after completing his "six miles," attend to what he might just as well have done at the very beginning of his journey. If this is the way, the Bishop teaches the Zulus economy of time and labor, we admire his wisdom and their patience.

The relations of a later period may also throw light upon the meaning of this injunction. The entire en

campment of all the tribes corresponded to the land of Canaan as the residence of the whole people. The particular camps which formed its subdivisions corresponded to the different localities in which the people dwelt together. But the ashes of the temple and the offal of the sacrifices were not to be carried beyond Jordan, and outside of the territory of Israel; they were deposited or burned in the valley of the son of Hinnom, just without the city walls. So leprous persons were not banished beyond the limits of Palestine, but simply required to dwell apart, and outside of the town or city to which they belonged, 2 Kings vii. 3, xv. 5. As the prescriptions of the Pentateuch are the only ones bearing upon this subject, this shows how they were adapted by the people to their altered circumstances, and of course, what they understood the real meaning of these prescriptions to be. And if this interpretation be taken as authoritative, then to remove without the camp' means not outside of the territory occupied by the entire people; but outside of that particular collection of habitations in which the thing to be removed happened to be.

If the army of the Potomac consists of 100,000 men, it must on the Bishop's principles be a very formidable business to remove the offal and rubbish outside of their camp. He can calculate for us what the size of an encampment must be, that can accommodate such a body of soldiers, and how far those in the centre must walk to reach its exterior limit. Before he enters, however, in real earnest upon the computation, we would advise him to inquire, whether they may not be encamped by regiments or divisions, and thus their labor be reduced, and his rendered unnecessary.

But this is not all. The Levites were to encamp

about the tabernacle by families. The three chief families of the tribe were to pitch at its rear and on its two sides, Num. iii. 23, 29, 35; while Moses and Aaron and his sons were all who were to encamp in front of the tabernacle, ver. 38. So that in order to go from the tabernacle to the outside of the Levitical camp, it was necessary to pass the tents of these four men !

Now, let us put Colenso's statements along side of the facts, and see what remains of his argument. The greater part of the body of a bullock, belonging not to the ordinary sacrifices but to a class rarely requiring to be offered, was to be carried not "on the back on foot,” but conveyed in any manner that was thought proper, not by "Aaron himself or one of his sons," but by any person or persons they chose to employ, not "a distance of six miles," but past the tents of four men. And this is so 'huge' a 'difficulty' that the Mosaic origin and the credibility of the Pentateuch must be given up in consequence! Which is unhistorical' now, Moses or Colenso? But, adds the Bishop,

"From the outside of this great camp, wood and water would have had to be fetched for all purposes." "And the ashes of the whole camp, with the rubbish and filth of every kind, for a population like that of London, would have had to be carried out in like manner through the midst of the crowded mass of people."

Very well. There are cities with as large a population as that of London, and without its European conveniences, or its system of sewerage, as Peking for example, which continue to exist in the same place not only for one year, or for forty years, but for ages and centuries. Some how or other they manage to have their wants supplied, and their garbage removed. Could not Moses, trained at the court of Pharaoh, have directed

such matters at least as well as the Chinese? His question whether "such supplies of wood or water, for the wants of such a multitude as this, could have been found at all in the wilderness," properly belongs under another head, and will receive a sufficient answer, when we come to consider his strictures upon the subsistence of the sheep and cattle of the Israelites in the desert. See Chap. X.

The objector proceeds:

"They could not surely all have gone outside the camp for the necessities of nature, as commanded in Deut. xxiii. 12-14." "We have to imagine half a million of men going out daily-the 22,000 Levites for a distance of six miles-to the suburbs for the common necessities of nature, The supposition involves, of course, an absurdity. But it is our duty to look plain facts in the face."

What is to be thought of the honesty and truthfulness, not to say decency, of a man who can talk in this manner? The "plain fact "is, that this regulation, as is manifest upon the very face of it, had nothing to do with the camp of the entire people. It is expressly confined to military expeditions. The paragraph begins (ver. 9), "When the host (the original is without the definite article, in, a camp) goeth forth against thine enemies, then keep thee from every wicked thing." Detachments sent out to attack their foes are reminded of their sacred character, and all defilement or impurity in their camps is prohibited. The encampment of the entire people was, no doubt, under such ceremonial oversight and had such police arrangements, as the nature of the case permitted or required. But parties on military duty away from the main body are here put under special rules, whose wisdom, even in a sanitary point of view, is obvious.

CHAPTER V.

THE NUMBER OF THE PEOPLE AT THE FIRST MUSTER, COMPARED WITH THE POLL-TAX RAISED SIX MONTHS PREVIOUSLY.

UNDER this head we are first treated to a precious specimen of the bishop's proficiency in Hebrew learning. The expression, 'shekel of the sanctuary,' first occurring in Ex. xxx. 13, and frequently thereafter is, as he remarks, rendered in the Septuagint 'the sacred shekel.' "But this," he goes on to say, "can hardly be the true meaning of the original p." And why not, pray ? The merest tyro in Hebrew could tell him, that this is quite as likely a meaning of the phrase as the other. The word p occurs 466 times in the Old Testament. Of all these Gesenius, in his Thesaurus, finds but 23 places, in which he judges that it means the sanctuary or one of its apartments, and five more in which it may mean it; and in none of these does the phrase in question occur. On the contrary, he says of it, "it is used hundreds of times (sexcenties) in the genitive in place of an adjective;" and he adduces, as phrases in which it occurs in this sense, "holy ground, holy place, holy hill, holy Spirit, holy name, holy day, holy sabbath, holy city, holy temple, holy oracle, holy flesh, holy bread (Eng. ver. hallowed), holy vessels, holy garments, holy