a week. Perhaps the Lord gave them a shove behind.

The twelve selected Jews, one from each tribe, took twelve big stones
out of the bed of the river, which were "pitched in Gilgal" as "a
memorial unto the children of Israel for ever." For ever is a long time
and is not yet ended. Those stones should be there now. Why don't the
clergy try to discover them? If brought to London and set up on the
Thames embankment they would throw Cleopatra's needle into the shade.

When God had ferried the Jews across, and picked out the twelve
big stones as aids to memory, the "heap" of water tumbled down and
overflowed the banks of the river. Joshua and his people then encamped
near Jericho, in readiness for greater wonders to come.

Three days afterwards the manna ceased. Jehovah's fighting cocks wanted
a more invigorating diet. This time they did not ask for a change, but
the Lord vouchsafed it spontaneously.

All the males, too, were circumcised by God's orders. This Jewish rite
had been neglected during the forty years' wandering in the wilderness,
but it was now resumed. From the text it seems that Joshua circumcised
all the males himself. As they numbered about a million and a half it
must have been a long job. Allowing a minute for each amputation, it
would in the natural course of things have taken him about three years
to do them all; but being divinely aided, he finished his task in a
single day. Samson's jaw-bone was nothing to Joshua's knife.

Soon after Joshua, being near Jericho, like Balaam's ass saw an angel
with a drawn sword in his hand. When he had made obeisance, by falling
flat and taking off his shoes, he received from this heavenly messenger
precise instructions as to the capture of the doomed city. The Lord's
way of storming fortresses is unique in military literature. Said he to
Joshua--"Ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round
about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests
shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh
day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow
with the trumpet? And it shall come to pass that when they make a long
blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet
all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city
shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight
before him."

Did ever another general receive such extraordinary instructio