Why did a God of infinite mercy destroy seventy thousand men? Why did he fill his land with widows and orphans, because King David had taken the cen- sus? If he wanted to kill anybody, why did he not kill David? I will tell you why. Because at that 215 time, the people were considered as the property of the king. He killed the people precisely as he killed the cattle. And yet, I am told that the Bible is not a cruel book. In the twenty-first chapter of Second Samuel, I find that there were three years of famine in the days of David, and that David inquired of the Lord the reason of the famine; and the Lord told him that it was because Saul had slain the Gibeonites. Why did not God punish Saul instead of the people? And David asked the Gibeonites how he should make atonement, and the Gibeonites replied that they wanted no silver nor gold, but they asked that seven of the sons of Saul might be delivered unto them, so that they could hang them before the Lord, in Gibeah. And David agreed to the proposition, and thereupon he delivered to the Gibeonites the two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, and the Gibeonites hanged all seven of them together. And Rizpah, more tender than them all, with a woman's heart of love kept lonely vigil by the dead, "from the beginning of har- "vest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, "and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon "them by day, nor the beast of the field by night." 216 I want to know if the following, from the fifteenth chapter of First Samuel, is inspired: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I remember that "which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for "him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now "go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that "they have, and spare them not, but slay both man "and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, "camel and ass." We must remember that those he was commanded to slay had done nothing to Israel. It was something done by their forefathers, hundreds of years before; and yet they are commanded to slay the women and children and even the animals, and to spare none. It seems that Saul only partially carried into exe- cution this merciful command of Jehovah. He spared the life of the king. He "utterly destroyed all the "people with the edge of the sword," but he kept alive the best of the sheep and oxen and of the fat- lings and lambs. Then God spake unto Samuel and told him that he was very sorry he had made Saul king, because he had not killed all the animals, and because he had spared Agag; and Samuel asked Saul: "What meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine "ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" 217 Are stories like this calculated to make soldiers merciful?