So we find that at one time the people became exceedingly hungry. They had no flesh to eat. There were six hundred thousand men of war, and they had nothing to feed on but manna. They naturally murmured and complained, and thereupon a wind from the Lord went forth and brought quails from the sea, (quails are generally found in the sea,) "and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's "journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey "on the other side, round about the camp, and as it "were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. "And the people stood up all that day, and all that "night, and all the next day, and they gathered the "quails. * * * And while the flesh was yet be- "tween their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of "the Lord was kindled against the people, and the "Lord smote the people with a very great plague." Yet he is slow to anger, long-suffering, merciful and just. In the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, is the ac- 240 count of the golden calf. It must be borne in mind that the worship of this calf by the people was before the Ten Commandments had been given to them. Christians now insist that these commandments must have been inspired, because no human being could have constructed them,--could have conceived of them. It seems, according to this account, that Moses had been up in the mount with God, getting the Ten Com- mandments, and that while he was there the people had made the golden calf. When he came down and saw them, and found what they had done, having in his hands the two tables, the work of God, he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount. He then took the calf which they had made, ground it to powder, strewed it in the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. And in the twenty-seventh verse we are told what the Lord did: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Put every man "his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate "to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man "his brother, and every man his companion, and "every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi "did according to the word of Moses; and there fell "of the people that day about three thousand men." 241 The reason for this slaughter is thus given: "For "Moses had said: Consecrate yourselves to-day to "the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon " his brother, that he may bestow upon you a blessing "this day." Now, it must be remembered that there had not been as yet a promulgation of the commandment u Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This was a punishment for the infraction of a law before the law was known--before the commandment had been given. Was it cruel, or unjust? Does the following sound as though spoken by a God of mercy: "I will make mine arrows drunk "with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh"? And yet this is but a small part of the vengeance and destruction which God threatens to his enemies, as recorded in the thirty-second chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.