g undone of all that the Lord had
commanded Joshua.

"So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country,
and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain and mountain
of Israel, and the valley of the same;

"Even from the Mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in
the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon; and all their kings he took,
and smote theme and slew them.

"Joshua made war a long time on all those kings. There was not a city
that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the
inhabitants of Gibeon; all the others they took in battle.

"So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said
unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel,
according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from
war."--Josh. xi, 7-23.

"When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim
peace unto it.

"And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee,
then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be
tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

"And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against
thee, then thou shalt besiege it.

"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou
shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.

"But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in
the city, even all the spoil thereof, shaft thou take unto thyself; and
thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath
given thee.

"Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from
thee, which are not of the cities of those nations.

"But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give
thee for an inheritance, thou shaft save alive nothing that breatheth.

"But thou shalt utterly destroy them."

(Neither the old man nor the woman, nor the beautiful maiden, nor the
sweet dimpled babe, smiling upon the lap of its mother.)

"And He said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel (a merciful
God, indeed), put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out
from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother,
and every man his neighbor."--Es. xxxii, 29.

(Now recollect, these instructions were given to an army of invasion,
and the people who were slayed were guilty of the crime of fighting for
their homes and their firesides. Oh, most mercif