host", and how this captain had given to him a magic spell which
would destroy the city of Jericho. The city should be accursed,
"even it and all that are therein, to the Lord"; every living
thing except one traitor-harlot was to be slaughtered, and all
the wealth of the city reserved to the priestly caste. This was
carried out to the letter, except that "Achan, the son of Carmi,
the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took
of the accursed thing"--that is, he hid some gold and silver in
his tent; whereupon the army met with a defeat, and everybody
knew that something was wrong, and Joshua rent his clothes and
fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord, and
got another message from Jehovah, to the effect that the guilty
man should be burned with fire, "he and all that he hath."

And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah,
and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his
sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his
sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them
unto the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled
us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned
him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned
him with stones.

We have no means of knowing what was the character of the
unfortunate inhabitants of the city of Jericho, nor of the
Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and all the rest of
the victims of Jehovah. To be sure, we are told by the Hebrew
priests that they sacrificed their children to their gods; but
then, consider what we should believe about the Hebrew religion,
if we took the word of rival priestly castes! Consider, for