of the innocent and the silencing of the prophet--what Christ calls offences against His little ones--are even more awful atrocities than the wanton horrors of barbarian warfare. If we keep in mind this moral purpose, we shall study with more interest than we could otherwise do the somewhat foreign details of this section. Horrible as the outrages are which Amos describes, they were repeated only yesterday by Turkey: many of the crimes with which he charges Israel blacken the life of Turkey's chief accuser, Great Britain. In his survey Amos includes all the six states of Palestine that bordered upon Israel, and lay in the way of the advance of Assyria--Aram of Damascus, Philistia, Tyre (for Phœnicia), Edom, Ammon and Moab. They are not arranged in geographical order. The prophet begins with Aram in the north-east, then leaps to Philistia in the south-west, comes north again to Tyre, crosses to the south-east and Edom, leaps Moab to Ammon, and then comes back to Moab. Nor is any other explanation of his order visible. Damascus heads the list, no doubt, because her cruelties had been most felt by Israel, and perhaps too because she lay most open to Assyria. It was also natural to take next to Aram Philistia,[209] as Israel's other greatest foe; and nearest to Philistia lay Tyre. The three south-eastern principalities come together. But there may have been a chronological reason now unknown to us. The authenticity of the oracles on Tyre, Edom and Judah has been questioned: it will be best to discuss each case as we come to it. Each of the oracles is introduced by the formula: _Thus saith,_ or _hath said, Jehovah: Because of three crimes of ... yea, because of four, I will not turn It back._ In harmony with the rest of the book,[210] Jehovah is represented as moving to punishment, not for a single sin, but for repeated and cumulative guilt. The unnamed _It_ which God will not recall is not the word of judgment, but the anger and the hand stretched forth to smite.[211] After the formula, an instance of the nation's guilt is given, and then in almost identical terms he decrees the destruction of all by war and captivity. Assyria is not mentioned, but it is the Assyrian fashion of dealing with conquered states which is described. Except in the case of Tyre and Edom, the oracles conclude as they have begun, by asserting themselves to be the _word of Jehovah_, or of _Jehovah the Lord_. It is no abstract righteousness which condemns these foreign peoples, but the God of Israel, and their evil deeds are described by the characteristic Hebrew word for sin--_crimes_, _revolts_ or _treasons_ against Him.[212] * * * * *