The stupendous prodigy performed by that free-booter and murderer, Joshua, in laying an embargo upon, the sun and moon, in order to get time to kill a few thousands more of the Amorites, showed a ferocious thirst of blood, and was wholly uncalled for, victory being already secured through the powerful aid of Jahouh, who, sitting astride on the corner of a dark cloud was pelting the Amorites with great stones. Let us suppose that both the sun and the moon were in view at the same time, and that they stood still as commanded, would that make the massacre of the Amorites one iota less cruel and ferocious? It would only prove that Joshua's god was neither just nor merciful. This tale is, no doubt, a varied version of the fable of Jupiter's sending a shower of large hailstones upon the rebellious sons of Neptune. This may be coupled with another enormous fiction, the dial of Ahaz, upon which, by a bolder manoeuvre still, the sun is commanded to go backwards. Moses and Joshua appear to have had a sun and moon, as well as a Deity of their own. From all this does it not appear that the compilers of these fables, though under heavenly inspiration, were so ignorant as to suppose that the sun's motion caused the day, and that this globe stood still? Is it not evident also, that they took the stars to be little bright spangles set in a solid firmament (which had windows), as jewellers set brilliants in metal? The man who seriously believes in the literality of our version of these fables, is so stupidly and piteously credulous, as to be an object of compassion rather than of contempt. The two last miracles had more than one archetype in Pagan mythology:--the sun and moon were arrested by Bacchus on his march to India. In one of the love intrigues of Jupiter, he stayed the sun in order to get a double night in the arms of the fair Alcmena, when she conceived of the great Hercules. In later times the Christian priests performed a similar miracle in favor of the Emperor Charles V. If Amphion, by the music of his lyre, made the stones dance into building order, so as to raise the walls of Thebes, why should not Joshua reverse the miracle, by tumbling down the walls of Jericho, to a tune played upon rams' horns by priests? In the whole history of human cruelty and wickedness, there is nothing to equal, in cool and diabolical atrocity, the plunder and massacre of the Midianites. The horrible narrative partakes but little of the miraculous; yet, as Jahouh was said to be without a material body, and purely spiritual, it has been matter of wonder what he was going to do with the thirty-two young virgins who "had not known a man by lying with him," and who were awarded as his share of the spoil. This is a mystery which we must hold in silent reverence, as being altogether unaccountable, unless we surmise that his priests kindly intended to relieve him of so numerous a seraglio.*