calves, they nevertheless went straight along the road to Bethshemesh,
lowing as they went, and turning not aside to the right hand or to the
left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border
of Bethshemesh. The men of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat
harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark,
and rejoiced to see it, and the cart came into the field of Joshua the
Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone, and they
clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine as a burnt-offering.
And the Levites took down the Ark, and the coffer that was with it,
wherein the jewels of stone were, and put them on the great stone, and
the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offering and sacrifices. When the
Philistines had seen all these things, and when they knew that the
plague in their land was stayed, did they acknowledge the Lord God?
How should they, seeing that they were not His elect?

The children of Israel continually turned aside to the lewd gods of the
heathen, and at times it seemed as if the whole earth would be given up
to the abominations of the Canaanites. The Lord had brought us out of
Egypt, and through the desert. He had appeared to us on Sinai, and had
given us His commandments, by which alone we could live. He had
revealed unto us that we should be pure, and separate ourselves from
the filth around us. He had roused up Moses, and Joshua, and the
Judges, all of whom strove to preserve and ever build higher and
stronger the wall which was to protect us, so that the sacred Law and
the service of the one God might continue. Israel was but a handful in
the midst of Philistines and Amalekites, nations which worshipped Baal
with fornication and all kinds of uncleanness, and Israel was ever at
the point of mingling with them. Then it would have been forgotten as
they will be forgotten; but if it will only abide in the Law, as given
in thunder and lightning in the wilderness, it will be great, when,