government; and He was their king in a different sense from that in which He is king of all the earth. Don't you recollect when, some hundreds of years after, they asked for a king, and said that they wished to be like the other nations, Samuel was grieved and vexed; but God said to him, They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.' Therefore, you see, the setting up of another god was also the setting up of another king, and consequently to be punished as treason. Idolators must be cut off out of the land. Besides, God gave these directions at this time about this particular people, and afterwards definitely about this particular sin, to the Jews. But we find nothing of the kind in our Lord's instructions to His Apostles, any more than we do in the patriarchal times."

Thanks, Mrs. Conway. I see what you mean; and now may we follow the people into their new possessions? I have been tracing their course a little in the map this morning."

66

Very well, then trace it out for us, if you please, Martin," Mrs. Conway said, with a smile. "We will get some maps too, and follow you; but stay, it must not be this evening; for here come our Indian letters, and I have not patience to wait till to-morrow to read them."

81

CHAPTER IX.

THE GREAT WAR.

"Be strong, and of a good courage."-DEUT. xxxi. 6.

HEY were here at Kadesh Barnea," began the

"THE

youth, next day, as if impatient of further loss of time, and almost before the others were seated, "just at the south of Canaan, when they sent the spies on to see it, and were so discouraged at their report. So they had to turn back and wander in the desert until thirtyeight out of the forty years were gone.

"I cannot find many of the stations marked; but some book that I was reading lately says that it is supposed that they were mostly round Mount Sinai. The list of places is given in the thirty-third chapter of Numbers, you see: perhaps the names have changed, or the places disappeared now. Well, I dare say that it was just as well that generation did die out; for they had been slaves in Egypt so long, that they would never have made much of free men. The children born and bred in the free air of the desert must have been quite another race; and no doubt they had plenty of time to learn all the arts and trades that their fathers had acquired in Egypt."

I read somewhere the other day," remarked Harry, "that it has been thought that the great Egyptian conqueror Sesostris was fighting his battles all that time. If that be true, isn't it a wonder how these Israelites escaped ?"

"Yes; but then," suggested Janet, "Moses was often reminding the people how wonderfully God had taken care of them all through their wanderings. Here in Deut. iv. he asks over and over again whether He had ever treated any nation as He had treated them; and somewhere else-oh, here, in the eighth chapter-he says that even 'their raiment had not waxed old,' nor their feet swollen, all through those forty years' journeying;why, it was one long miracle, surely!"

66

Yes, I think so," Martin said, "and it seems more extraordinary the more one thinks of it. However, here they were at Kadesh Barnea, when they had to turn; and here they suddenly reappeared in the thirty-eighth year, when they began to move onward. Miriam dies then; and soon after Moses strikes the rock, and excites God's displeasure. Then the next thing is his sending to ask the king of Edom to let them march through his land; and his refusing. But I can't think why they should have wished it. Look, Mrs. Conway, Kadesh is on the southern frontier of Palestine, why not wait there until the time came to go in ?"

"No doubt this move was made by God's command," she said. "We are told, in the ninth chapter of Numbers, that a cloud always guided them in their wanderings. It was on the day that the tabernacle was reared up that this cloud first covered it; and by night it changed to the appearance of fire. While this cloud remained stationary, the children of Israel journeyed not; but when it was raised up, then preparations were made to march, following its lead. At intervals also God spoke to Moses; as we read in the last verse of the seventh chapter, that when Moses 'was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation, he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat.' But there were good reasons, too, why they should not attack the inhabitants of the

land first at this point. The country is mountainous, and it is believed that the hills were crowned with strong forts. Besides, the gigantic people about Hebron and the warlike Philistines would alike be ready to oppose them." "I see; and so they wanted to get across Mount Seir; but could an army do that?"

"Yes; in one place," she answered, "the pass of El Ghoeyr; and they addressed the Edomites in a very brotherly way, you see. Thou knowest,' they said, 'all the travel that hath befallen us,' etc., shewing clearly that their strange history was known to the surrounding nations."

66

'Well, the descendants of Esau seemed to remember their father's old grudge against Jacob, and wouldn't hear of it," Martin went on; "so they had to turn and go down southwards, right to the head of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea; and on their way Aaron died on Mount Hor. Afterwards they were bitten by the fiery serpents; and next they had a successful encounter with King Arad, the Canaanite; but it seems to have been a weary, long way round. Once past the mountainous ridge, they turned up northward, and soon got into the country of Moab: but they were told not to hurt the Moabites or the Ammonites, because they were children of Lot (Deut. ii. 9, 19), and God said He had given them their respective countries, as He had given Mount Seir to Esau. However, they made such short work with Og, king of Bashan, and Sihon, king of the Amorites, that Balak, king of Moab, got frightened, and sent for Balaam to see what he could do with them. And so they came up to the brook Jabbok, which flows into the Jordan.

"It seems to me that they remained there a good whilea year or two-on that east bank of the Jordan, conquering the country; and so Moses did see two tribes and a half settled: Reuben in the country of the Amorites; Gad

further north, about Mount Gilead; and the half-tribe of Manasseh all along the east coast of the sea of Galilee. Awfully frightened those people must have been to see such a host coming into their country. I don't wonder that the king of Moab cried out that they were going to lick up everything as oxen lick the grass of the plain. We should be frightened enough if about 2,000,000 people could effect a lodgment among us!"

"Yes; but one of God's promises through Moses was, that He would put the fear and dread of them on all the nations whom they were to supplant, so that one of them should chase a thousand, and ten put ten thousand to flight; otherwise they would never have been suffered to effect that lodgment," Mrs. Conway observed: "and see here we get additions to our prophetic store from the mouth of a Chaldean soothsayer."

"I don't understand you, mamma," said Stewart; "who?"

6

"I mean Balaam," she said. "Did you suppose that he lived only a short distance from Moab? Oh no; that river of the children of his people,' spoken of in Numbers xxii. 5, must have been the Euphrates, the river, par excellence, of those parts; for in chap. xxiii. 7, he says himself, Balak, king of Moab, hath brought me from Aram, from the mountains of the east.' But all that he says seems to imply that he had not lost the knowledge of the true God, which I dare say still lingered in the land of Abraham's ancestors. Those words, The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations,' are very remarkable, and strike me as shewing an acquaintance with the promises about Abraham's seed."

"Do you think then that he understood all he said, mamma? Wasn't he just forced to say those things?" asked Janet.

"We cannot tell how God works when He inspires