The objector will perhaps say――He might have sunk all Canaan under a second flood like that of Noah’s time, and no complaint could stand against him. He might have engulfed those cities in fire as he did guilty Sodom, and all the living, cognizant of the moral grounds of the act, would have said, Amen! But that he should set such an example of _war_――the most horrid of all wars――before the nations of all history――before the ages of all time, giving it his holy sanction――nay more, setting his own most holy people to the bloody work――this is unpardonable. That he should put them to such barbarities――subject them to such demoralization of all the finer sensibilities of the human soul, seems too horrid to be thought of! It is perhaps well to meet this question in its strongest form, with its objectionable points in their most revolting aspect. I do not feel called upon to say one word to soften down any man’s sense of the horrors of war. War _is_ horrid――but sin is more horrid――certainly such sin as that of the old Canaanites. In fact war is horrid――not mainly because of the suffering but because of the _sin_ that may be in it. And this suggests the true and just reply to be made to the objection now before us, viz. that such a war as that of Israel against the Canaanites, waged in obedience to God; waged for the destruction of such sinners and to cleanse the earth from such unutterable abominations and pollutions, is _not_ demoralizing――is not so either necessarily or even naturally; but if done in honest obedience to God and with a due sense of the grounds on which God commanded it, must have been the very opposite of demoralizing; must have educated the nation of Israel to a juster sense of the abominations of idolatry and of the righteous moral government of God over the wicked in the present world. It can not be doubted that these were the ends which God sought to secure in putting this service upon Israel. A lower object to be reached was to vacate the land of Canaan for Israel to occupy; but the far higher object was to wash the land of its moral pollutions; to break down and blot out nations too corrupt to live. The Lord devolved this extirpation upon Israel that they might thereby get a deeper sense of his abhorrence of such sin――not to say also, a juster view of the intrinsic abominations which God commissioned them to punish. Or we may put the argument thus: Given――the great historic fact, the moral corruption of the nations of Canaan and the moral purpose of God to exterminate those nations for their corruption. The choice of methods lies between _miracles_ on the one hand, and the war-force of Israel, backed up by God’s providential agencies, on the other:――miracles as in the flood and on Sodom: or the war-commission given to his people Israel. Now consider.――――1. Miracles had already been employed repeatedly before the eyes of mankind, and the Lord might for this reason wisely vary his methods, for the greater and better effect.