If he so pleased, he could quote plenty of biblical precedents for slaying and maiming, on a far larger scale than was proposed in the Gunpowder Plot, which would be a mere trifle in comparison with some of the following butcheries:--"They warred against the Midianites," "and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian."[142] "They slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men." "And they slew of Moab at that time ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man."[143] "David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand."[144] "The other Jews," "slew of their foes seventy and five thousand."[145] "Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Juda an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers,"[146] just as King James and the English Government had forsaken Him, in Catesby's and Sir Everard's opinions. [142] Numbers xxxi. 7, 8. For the benefit of my Protestant readers, I quote my Scripture from the Anglican version, to show them that there is nothing "apocryphal" in it. [143] Judges iii. 29. [144] 2 Samuel viii. 5. [145] Esther viii. 16. [146] 2 Chron. xxviii. 6. If it were objected that all these fell in battle, and that it was quite a different thing to murder people by stealth in cold blood, could not Catesby have replied that "Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him [Sisera], and smote the nail into his temple, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died."[147] Jael Heber's wife was acting as hostess to a friend who had come into her tent for shelter and protection, and had fallen asleep. Yet Deborah and Barak sang in honour of this performance:--[148] "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead." "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord."[149] Might not, and ought not, the English Catholics to sing much such a song in honour of Catesby, Digby, and their fellow-conspirators, when the king and the Parliament should be blown up, and fall, and lie down, at their feet, where they should fall down dead? Was there not something biblical and appropriate, again, in destroying the enemies of the Lord with fire? "Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them."[150] "Thou shalt be fuel for the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land."[151] And had not the very gentlest of men, even the God-man, said, "I am come to send fire on