spies, lurking on foot, but that they took with them a small compact party of their swiftest warriors, able to thread their way through the valleys and waste places, to defend themselves if attacked by a small force, and to depart before a large one could be got together. They went with the watchword of Joshua, "Be strong and of a good courage," and they made good speed. They viewed the land of hills and vales, "their father's hope, their childhood's dream," so utterly unlike the place of their birth. They saw its deep valleys, watered by mountain streams, and full of fair pastures; the fields of waving corn, the mountain slopes covered with vines and olives ; the mighty shade of the cork-trees, and the broad foliage of the figs. They wandered up the deep-cleft Jordan valley, even in sight of the forests of Lebanon and Hermon's snowy crown, and they made their way back by the sacred Vale of Hebron, the home of Abraham, where his oak-tree still spread its huge limbs, and the cave of Machpelah near at hand held the tombs of their fathers. And there they gathered those magnificent grapes that they brought back with them, to prove the splendour of the fruits of the land-a land, indeed, of promise.

But there had been failing hearts among them. They had not looked only at the corn and the vineyards: they had looked to the summit of the hills, each one crowned with a fortress built up of enormous stones, whose unbroken size after nearly four thousand years attest what the builders must have been in strength. And those first inhabitants were seen by the startled Israelites walking through their vineyards or gathering to make war. The last survivors of that giant race were ten or eleven feet in stature, and at the spectacle of such foes the hearts of the reconnoitring party sank within them, and when they came back to the camp they could scarcely speak of the loveliness of the country for describing the terrific

appearance of the inhabitants. The two, Joshua and Caleb, the stout-hearted deputy of the Lion tribe of Judah, did indeed speak undauntedly and full of hope and trust; but their voices were lost among the doleful lamentations of their ten colleagues; and throughout the whole night there was wailing and despair throughout the camp of Israel, till in early morning the populace had worked themselves up to such a pitch of senseless terror, that they proposed to choose a captain to lead them back to their bondage in Egypt. Joshua and Caleb, braver here than even when they searched the land, rushed forward to describe the beautiful land and remind them of the certainty that He who had wrested them out of the hand of Pharaoh could bring them into it; but the enraged people would not listen, and only strove to stone them.

The wild and tumultuous scene was only arrested by a sudden manifestation of the Glory of the Lord on the Tabernacle, overawing for a time the factious despair of the people. Moses entered within the Tabernacle to hear the Divine will. It was an awful answer. Those who would not enter the land should not. For forty years longer should the tribes remain as wanderers in the desert, till there had been time for the younger generation to grow up to a nobler, truer manhood, and for all their elders, all the obstinate murmurers who were for ever pining for Egypt, to perish in the wilderness. Two men alone of those above twenty were exempted by name from the sentence; those two were Joshua and Caleb, who alone had shown that trust which is true courage. Already, in earnest of this sentence, a sudden plague swept away the ten faint-hearted spies who had brought the ill report, but came not near the two brave friends. But, with fickle perverseness, the multitude refused to obey the command to turn back into the wilderness. They would go on into Palestine. They marshalled their armies and marched,

without the Ark, without Moses, without Joshua, without the Blessing. Those who tarried beside the Ark on the top of the hill soon saw the wilful host return, diminished, broken, chased by the enemy in swarms like angry bees, and glad to hide their heads in the camp, under their wonted Guide, even though it were only to suffer their slow but certain doom.

Those forty years are well-nigh a blank. At their close there was not a man in the whole congregation under sixty years of age, save Moses himself, Joshua, and Caleb ; and the younger race, trained up in the wondrous life of the Wilderness, beneath the discipline of Moses, were of very different mould from the slavish beings born and bred on the enervating banks of the Nile.

Victories had already been won over the mighty tribes who dwelt in the great cities of the fat pasture-lands of Gilead and Bashan, and over the corrupt and luxurious Midianites; the hills had been gained whence the narrow strip so longed for-the land flowing with milk and honey-could be viewed in its length and breadth. But there was one sentence first to be fulfilled

"Know ye not our glorious leader

Salem must but see and die?

Israel's guide, and nurse, and feeder,
Israel's hope afar must eye."

"Show thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory," had been Moses' own words of submission; and now his work was ended, and he was about to enter into a fuller rest than that of Canaan, and it was to Joshua that his work was left-to the most faithful, the most courageous of all the men of Israel that the glory of conquest was to be given, on whom the charge of that mighty multitude was to be laid.

The subdued and awe-struck people waited day after

day in their encampment on the slopes above the Dead Sea, while their chiefs gathered up those last discourses in which Moses reminded them of all their wonderful course of training in faith and holiness that they had undergone under the very eye, so to speak, of their Maker. Speaking not for them alone, but for all generations to come, he ardently exhorted them to the keeping of the Law, and warned them of the dire effects of breaking it; and, in the spirit of mournful prophecy, he was carried on to predict all the miseries that too surely the degenerate race would call down upon themselves.

Then came the Divine call, when Moses led the faithful Joshua into the Tabernacle, laid his consecrating hands upon him, and gave him the charge in which his office was summed up, "Be strong and of a good courage." And therewith the load and burthen of Israel were passed on to the warrior chief, whose strength lay in his simple obedience and fearless trust.

One prophetic song, one prophetic blessing, each rising higher in grandeur and beauty than aught which had yet passed the lips of the wonderful old man, whose eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated, and Moses climbed Mount Nebo to gaze on the promised land, and die in the majestic solitude, alone with the God who had ever been to him the nearest.

I

In the freshness of the loss came the voice of God promising that the new leader should never miss the aid that had borne Moses through the wilderness. To Joshua was thus vouchsafed the external assurance, faith in which braces every right spirit to face new responsibilities. will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage." That is the certainty that still makes Heroes, though they do not with their eyes behold, as did Joshua, the Captain of the LORD'S Host, with His sword drawn in His hand, to maintain their cause.

The obedience of the great Captain of Israel was first tried. When the rushing torrent of the river Jordan barred the way, he had to send the Priests bearing the Ark straight down into the still dashing stream; nor did the miracle that checked the current begin till their feet had touched the water, and they had thus proved their faith in the promise that they should be safe. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the High Priest, was a bold and fierce man, undaunted in his zeal : but was not the courage and faith very great that could dare to walk into the midst of a rapid stream in confidence that protection would be given?

Obedience, not fierce attacks, was again imposed on the armies of Israel, when for six long days all these ardent fighting-men had to stand still and see nothing done to besiege the city of Jericho, except that the sacred Ark was carried round the walls by the Levites, while the seven Priests went in front and blew their trumpets. "What was the use?" the faithless might have asked. There was at least this use. It is the maxim of armies Obedience is the soldier's first lesson: to stand still is the soldier's first exercise. The Divine Captain of the Lord's Host was teaching His army this first lesson.

now.

The seventh day came; the Army, the Priests, the Ark, marched round in obedient stillness, till at Joshua's signal the trumpets pealed, the warriors shouted, and the mighty walls fell-fell all at once, and flat to the ground, so that the army marched in without climbing or struggling. A sentence had been spoken on Jericho. The Canaanites had become horribly corrupt, and to exterminate them from the face of the earth was the only means of saving Israel from the infection of their vices and idolatry. Strict commands had been given that none should escape the doom, save one household, and Joshua's care for that house and the faithful compassionate Rahab shows how