ard, and
during the whole journey not an evening had passed without strife and
sanguinary quarrels.

Wounds and fatal blows had often been given when an offended man
revenged himself on his enemy, or a dishonest one seized the property of
others or denied the obligations he had sworn to fulfil.

In such cases it had been difficult to restore peace and call the
criminals to account; for the refractory refused to recognize any one
as judge. Whoever felt himself injured banded with others, and strove to
obtain justice by force.

On that festal evening Hur and his guests at first failed to notice the
uproar to which every one was accustomed. But when close at hand, amid
the fiercest yells, a bright glare of light arose, the chiefs began
to fear for the safety of the camp, and rising to put an end to the
disturbance, they became witnesses of a scene which filled some with
wrath and horror, and the others with grief.

The rapture of victory had intoxicated the multitude.

They longed to express their gratitude to the deity, and in vivid
remembrance of the cruel worship of their home, a band of Phoenicians
among the strangers had kindled a huge fire to their Moloch and were
in the act of hurling into the flames several Amalekite captives as the
most welcome sacrifice to their god.

Close beside it the Israelites had erected on a tall wooden pillar a
clay image of the Egyptian god Seth, which one of his Hebrew worshippers
had brought with him to protect himself and his family.

Directly after their return to the camp Aaron had assembled the people
to sing hymns of praise and offer prayers of thanksgiving; but to many
the necessity of beholding, in the old-fashioned way, an image of the
god to whom they were to uplift their souls, had been so strong that the
mere sight of the clay idol had sufficed to bring them to their knees,
and turn them from the true God.

At the sight of the servants of Moloch, who were already binding the
human victims to hurl them into the flames, Joshua was seized with
wrath and, when the deluded men resisted, he ordered the trumpets to
be sounded and with his young men who blindly obeyed him and were by no
means friendly to the strangers, drove them back, without bloodshed, to
their quarters in the camp.

The impressive warnings of old Nun, Hur, and Naashon diverted the
Hebrews from the crime which ingratitude made doubly culpable. Yet many
of the latter found it hard to control themselves w