Over the barbarous stories of Ehud stabbing Eglon, with its disgusting details (iii., 21, 22); of Jael murdering her guest, in defiance of all desert laws of hospitality, and receiving for her treachery the blessing of the Lord, a blessing shared only with Mary, the mother of Jesus (v. 24, compare Luke i., 28); of Gideon and of Abimelech, with the evil spirit sent by god (Judges ix., 23); of Jephthah and his vow and his sacrifice of his daughter (xi., 29—39), as Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia; of Samson with his absurd and brutal conduct (xiv., 19; xv., 4, 5; and 14— 19, etc.); of the Levite and his concubine, and the foul details thereon (xix.)—what can any say of these save that such coarse and brutal stories belong to the childhood of every nation, and that while other peoples look back on their savage history as a thing that is past, these Hebrew stories are preserved in perennial freshness, and are placed as a burden on the consciences of the civilised nations of Europe, and, to our shame, are defended from criticism by the brutal laws of blasphemy invented in savage times and sanctioned in England to-day. The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah are interesting for the light they throw on the growth of the Israelitish people, but regarded as of divine authority, they give manifold occasion “for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.” Thus we read how the “ark of God” was carried to battle, and how the Philistines were afraid, and asked: “Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods?” But they wisely determined to try and save themselves, and bade each other: “Quit yourselves like men, and fight.” So they overcame Israel and his “mighty Gods,” and took the ark itself captive (chap. iv.). Jahveh, however, if he could not fight the Philistines, was strong enough to fight their gods, and when he was offered the hospitality of Dagon’s temple, and was left quiet for the night, he knocked poor Dagon down. The Philistines put Dagon up again, and this so annoyed Jahveh that on the following night he knocked Dagon down again, and cut off his head and “the palms of his hands” on the threshold. After that Jahveh performed a miniature edition of the plagues of Egypt in the various towns to which his ark was carried, until some clever priests hit upon the idea of putting the ark on a cart and harnessing in two milch kine, and letting them go wherever they pleased. Off marched the kine to Bethshemesh, and there they met the fate of all the unlucky creatures that did Jahveh any service, for the men of Bethshemesh took them and offered them as “a burnt offering to the Lord.” Then Jahveh broke out on the poor men of Bethshemesh, and killed 50,070 of them, because they (all of them?) had peeped into the ark (chaps, v., vi.). And it is actually blasphemy to deny any detail of this absurd story.