The probability is that the Hebrews never were in Egypt. In the Hebrew language there are no Egyptian words, and in the Egyptian no Hebrew. This proves that the Hebrews could not have mingled with the Egyptians for four hundred and thirty years. As a matter of fact, Moses is a myth. The enslavement of the Hebrews, the flight, the journey through the wilderness existed only in the imagination of ignorance. So Professor Briggs has his doubts about the sun and moon having been stopped for a day in order that Gen. Joshua might kill more heathen. Theologians have gathered around this miracle like moths around a flame. They have done their best to make it reasonable. They have talked about refraction and reflection, about the nature of the air having been changed so that the sun was visible all night. They have even gone so far as to say that Joshua and his soldiers killed so many that afterward, when thinking about it, they concluded that it must have taken them at least two days. This miracle can be accounted for only in one way. Jehovah must have stopped the earth. The earth, turning over at about one thousand miles an hour--weighing trillions of tons--had to be stopped. Now we know that all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. It has been calculated that to stop the earth would cause as much heat as could be produced by burning three lumps of coal, each lump as large as this world. Now, is it possible that a God in his right mind would waste all that force? The Bible also tells us that at the same time God cast hailstones from heaven on the poor heathen. If the writer had known something of astronomy he would have had more hailstones and said nothing about the sun and moon. Is it wise for ministers to ask their congregations to believe this story? Is it wise for congregations to ask their ministers to believe this story? If Jehovah performed this miracle he must have been insane. There should be some relation, some proportion, between means and ends. No sane general would call into the field a million soldiers and a hundred batteries to kill one insect. And yet the disproportion of means to the end sought would be reasonable when compared with what Jehovah is claimed to have done. If Jehovah existed let us admit that he had some sense. If it should be demonstrated that the book of Joshua is all false, what harm could follow? There would remain the same reasons for living a useful and virtuous life; the same reasons against theft and murder. Virtue would lose no prop and vice would gain no crutch. Take all the miracles from the Old Testament and the book would be improved. Throw away all its cruelties and absurdities and its influence would be far better.