knew that they must be trained from infancy to delight in murder, arson, and pillage. And notwithstanding the fathers had refused to obey Moses' order to go up and destroy their neighbors who had never done them injury, the juvenile members of the children of Israel were in his power, and were susceptible of that culture which would render them effective in serving his purposes in subjugating and despoiling the Canaanites. This Moses saw, and therefore he told the children of Israel that their "little ones would enter into the country of that people whom they, the fathers, would not slay and plunder. Hence, it was no prediction on the part of Moses in his saying to the fathers in Israel that they would perish wanderers in the deserts of Arabia, and that their children would go up and possess the land of Canaan.

SEC. 4. In order to a correct understanding of the matter, by the reader, I cannot deem it necessary that much more be said about the width of that space during which Moses gives no account of his own life and conduct, nor any history of the children of Israel. His record says, that "they came to the desert of Zin in the first month," that is, in the first month of the fortieth year after they came out of Egypt. Commentators agree in saying that the Israelites arrived at Kadesh-Barnea in the fourth month in the second year after they left Egypt; and, the record says, it was thirty-eight years from the time they left Kadesh-Barnea till they crossed the brook Zered. Therefore, if they did not tarry long at Kadesh-Barnea, then there were thirty-seven years and some eight, or ten, months of gap in the history of Moses and the Israelites; otherwise, there was that length of time out of forty years of their history of which Moses gives little or no account in his auto-biography. Quite an item to be overlooked by an inspired historian, and the Lord's infallible amanuensis, too!

SEC. 5. The second text quoted, at the head of this Chapter, says: "The people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there." The text does not say.

how long they abode in Kadesh, but from other passages in the Pentateuch it is evident that they tarried there but a short time. If they had remained there any considerable time, they could not have reached and passed over the brook Zered at the time which the text says they did—that is, within two, or three, months after they arrived at the desert of Zin; more than thirty days of that time were spent at Kadesh in performing funeral obsequies and in mourning over Miriam.

SEC. 6. The auto-biography of Moses gives very little account of the death of Miriam, or of the funeral ceremonials which were had on the occasion; but Josephus enlarges, and particularizes, to some extent. In Antiq. of the Jews, Chap. IV: Book IV: he says:

"Then it was that Miriam, the sister of Moses, came to her end, having completed her fortieth year since she left Egypt, on the first day of the lunar month Xanthicus. They then made a public funeral for her, at a great expense. She was buried upon a certain mountain, which they call "Sin;" and when they had mourned for her thirty days, Moses purified the people after this Now when this purification, which their leader made upon the mourning for his sister, as it has been now described, was over, he caused the army to remove, and to march through the wilderness, and through Arabia.”

manner:

*

*

This is evidence that the people abode at Kadesh thirty days, at least, out of the sixty, or ninety, days that they tarried in the desert of Zin.

SEC. 7. The said second text at the head of this Chapter says: "And there (at Kadesh) was no water for the congregation." This story about there being no water for the congregation lays a basis for another fabrication, namely: the story about Moses, the second time, pounding water out of a dry rock with his wizard's rod; in other words, about his Lord's telling him to talk water out of a rock, and his disobedience to that order-instead of talking it out he smote it out, abundantly, for the people and their animals, and that, too, by a couple of strokes with his magic rod. Enough was said in the seventeenth Chapter about the

question of Moses, on a former occasion, at Horeb, pumping rivers of water out of a dry block of granite, which, it was said, ran in the meandering trail of the children of Israel all over the deserts of Arabia Petræa, and for the space of about thirty-eight years. No sane man, nor sane woman, in his, or her, sober sense, and reflective mood, can, if they try, believe a word of either of these fabulous stories told about Moses bringing water out of the dry detached rock. Therefore, I shall not take up much space in further comments on these unfounded Jewish tales. But I would barely say here in words direct, what I have already said by argument; and that is this: the representation given in the Pentateuch of this matter of Moses bringing water out of the rocks, never had any foundation in fact-the whole thing is sheer fabrication, shielded by superstitious bigotry and ignorance, and nursed and defended by religious impostures.

SEC. 8. Again, the last text quoted, at the head of this Chapter, further says: "And they, (the people of the congregation,) gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron." I said in the last Chapter, that the Korah struggle for independence was the last attempt of the kind, by a united general effort of the people, made during the life of Moses, and it was so. But, the text now recited says the congregation gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron, here in the wilderness of Zin, some thirtyseven, or thirty-eight, years after that event transpired. The gathering of the people against Moses here at Kadesh was not because of any conflict of principle between the people and Moses-there was no moral or religious principle involved in the whole controversy-they, according to the record, simply murmured against him because he had led them into a place where there was no water for themselves, nor for their beasts. Hence, the record, in this transaction, does not contradict my statement made in the last Chapter.

SEC. 9. After leaving the desert of Zin, up to the time of Moses' death, no new principle of moral action was developed on the part of Moses and his accomplices. Nor

was there anything of extraordinary character recorded as having occurred with the people, during that time. Their given history is comprised mostly of the narrative of the route they took and the way and manner which they, under the dictation of Moses, worked their way around and through the nations intervening the desert of Zin and the land of Canaan-the haven for which they made and which they entered, after Moses' death. As there were no new principles developed in their action, I shall comment on this latter part of the history of Moses and the children of Israel only briefly, then bring this work to a close.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE ISRAELITES DEPART FROM KADESH AND MOVE FORWARD TO MOUNT HOR-AARON DIES AND IS BURIED ON MOUNT HOR-ELEAZAR, SON OF AARON, INSTALLED IN THE PRIESTHOOD, HIS FATHER'S SUCCESSOR.

"And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar, his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And Moses did as the Lord commanded; and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel." [Num. Xx: 22-29.

SECTION 1. When the Israelites were at Kadesh they were a few miles, only, from the southern border of the, so called, land of Canaan. To have entered it from the south, where they were, they would have passed into the territory of the Amalekites, else into the country of the Amorites. At home, at that time, on the battle-field, the Amalekites were more than a match for the Israelites; and the Amorites, on the west of the Dead Sea, were too numerous and strong for Moses and his men; hence, Moses dare not again attempt to force his way into the land of Canaan from the south. To have traveled east from Kadesh the Israelites would have passed through the country of the Edomites. This Moses sought to do, by peaceable means.