In the same chapter in which the account of the stoppage of the sun and moon is given, we find that God cast down from heaven great hailstones on Joshua's enemies. Did he get out of hailstones? Had he no "omnipotence" left? Was it necessary for him to stop the sun and moon and depend entirely upon the efforts of Joshua? Would not the force employed in stopping the rotary motion of the earth have been sufficient to destroy the enemy? Would not a millionth part of the force necessary to stop the moon, have pierced the enemy's centre, and rolled up both his flanks? A resort to lightning would have been, in my judgment, much more economical and rather more effective. If he had simply opened the earth, and swallowed them, as he did Korah and his company, it would have been a vast saving of "omnipotent" muscle. Yet, the foremost orthodox minister of the Presbyterian Church,--the one who calls all unbelievers "wolves and dogs," and "brazen "fools," in his effort to account for this miracle, is driven to the subterfuge of an "optical illusion." We are seriously informed that "God probably "changed the nature of the air," and performed this feat of ledgerdemain through the instrumentality of "refraction." It seems to me it would have been fully 91 as easy to have changed the nature of the air breathed by the enemy, so that it would not have supported life. He could have accomplished this by changing only a little air, in that vicinity; whereas, according to the Talmagian view, he changed the atmosphere of the world. Or, a small "local flood" might have done the work. The optical illusion and refraction view, ingenious as it may appear, was not original with Mr. Talmage. The Rev. Henry M. Morey, of South Bend, Indiana, used, upon this subject, the fol- lowing language; "The phenomenon was simply "optical. The rotary motion of the earth was not "disturbed, but the light of the sun was prolonged by "the same laws of refraction and reflection by which "the sun now appears to be above the horizon when "it is really below. The medium through which the "sun's rays passed, might have been miraculously "influenced so as to have caused the sun to linger "above the horizon long after its usual time for dis- "appearance." I pronounce the opinion of Mr. Morey to be the ripest product of Christian scholarship. According to the Morey-Talmage view, the sun lingered somewhat above the horizon. But this is inconsistent with the Bible account. We are not told in the Scriptures that 92