Let us now examine the text which opens this chapter. It declares that God requires of his people justice, mercy and humility. The word which has been translated into English as "mercy" is _hesed_. It is difficult to believe that this word meant in Hebrew what we understand by "mercy." In the one hundredth and thirty-sixth Psalm, David, whose character we explain in this book, thus praises the _hesed_, or "mercy" of God: _To him that smote Egypt in their first-born; for his mercy (hesed) endureth forever._ * Surely no modern moralist would think of attributing the wholesale murder of all the first-born in a land to the "mercy" of God! In the same vein, David, while praising Jehovah's "mercy" for "overthrowing Pharaoh and his host, in the Red sea," for "slaying great kings," and "famous kings," whom God killed in battle and whose lands he gave to the Jews, he exclaims, "For his hesed (mercy) endureth forever." We associate with the idea of "mercy," tenderness, compassion and charity. What makes "mercy" or charity a great quality is that it is, as a rule, bestowed upon the unfortunate, and even the undeserving. But to describe killing people in their sleep, or throwing down stones from heaven to destroy soldiers defending their homes, ** or to drown a nation trying to recover their property from the Jews who had "spoiled the Egyptians," before fleeing the land, as acts of "mercy," is to make of morality a mockery. What is the difference between the red Indian extolling Manitou for the scalps he has given him, and David singing: * Psalms cxxxvi, 10. ** Joshua x, ii. _To him that smote Egypt in their first-born: For his mercy endureth forever._ * * Consult Chilperic's article in The Reformer, Vol. VI, page 664. Who would for a moment hesitate between these lines of David and ```_The quality of mercy is not strained; ```It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven ```Upon the place beneath:_ of Shakespeare?