A HOMILY ON The True Campaign. And And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy."-Joshua v. 13-15. Material HE divine in Jewish history, is like the divine before us as a majestic portrait of a world of perfect spirits, endlessly diversified, yet harmonious; alternating, yet progressive; revolving ever around one centre, and basking in one radiance. In Hebrew history the Infinite Artist gives us a picture of moral mind in its fallen condition, struggling to deliver itself. The emancipation from Egyptian bondage; the trying pilgrimage in the desert; the special interposition of Heaven in the crossing of the Jordan; the fearful battles that were fought; and the settling down at last in the promised land ;-are all photographs of struggling souls, making their way from the thraldom of sin into "the inheritance of the saints in light." Vol. VIII. Were this the grand, ultimate, end of all these Jewish facts, I should say, that they were worth occurring. Indeed, I know of no worthier, no higher, end than that to which the Apostle alludes, when he says, "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are If the only use of the battles fought, of old, by the Jews, was to adumbrate the moral battles which fallen man must fight, in order to win the ideal of his being, they served no unimportant end in the moral kingdom of God. Restricting our attention, at present, to this view of the divinely authorized wars of the Old Testament, I shall look upon the scene before us as a picture of man's true moral campaign. The war scene of the text suggests three facts concerning man's true campaign :-That in the true campaign God Jericho was a most important place. It was situated at the end of the Jordan valley, and at the mouth of certain important passes leading westward, which Joshua needed to secure before he could lead up his army into the great central division of the land. Unless Jericho were taken and destroyed, the Israelites could not have advanced a step. By special miracle, the bed of the Jordan was dried up to afford them a passage; the descending waters being heaped up at Adam, beside Jaretan, several miles to the north, and the waters below carried on to the Dead Sea. The ark was carried by the priests, in solemn procession, to the middle of the river, till all the people passed over. Everything was done to remind them of the presence and arm of God. At Gilgal, which means "rolling" or "winding," circumcision, which had been omitted in the desert, owing to the violation of the covenant, was administered to the males of the congregation, to "roll away their reproach." At Jericho, the angel of the Covenant appeared to Joshua under a military dress, and title, as the "Captain of the Lord's host," to give him the assurance of his presence in the series of wars now beginning. In besieging Jericho, the ark was carried six successive days round the walls; on the seventh day, seven times;-when suddenly the walls fell down. The inhabitants were put to the sword, the city razed to the ground, and a solemn curse pronounced against any one who should dare to rebuild it.-Blackie. has committed to him a great work: blessed him with a great Leader: and requires from him a great spirit. I. THAT IN THE TRUE CAMPAIGN, GOD HAS COMMITTED TO MAN A GREAT WORK. Looking to the work now devolving on Joshua for illustrations, we make the following observations: First: It is an onerous work. The work of battle and bloodshed to which the Sovereign Disposer of life, and the Righteous Arbiter of destiny, called Joshua on this occasion, was the utter extermination of most formidable antagonists. The Canaanites were a numerous, opulent, and mighty, people. They were distinguished by the extent of their commerce and the superiority of their navigation. Their colonies were numerous, their influence was great through the world;—they were masters of the Mediterranean. Against this mighty people the valiant successor of Moses had now to lead on the hosts of Israel, and that for its entire extermination. There was to be no half-work, no compromise;-nothing less than their complete annihilation. Onerous as was the work to which Joshua was now called, our work in the moral campaign is more so. We live in a world of evil. Corrupt principles, the mighty "powers of darkness," possess the world we live in. They crowd our spheres of action; and alas! they are encamped within us. The work to which we are called, is their entire extermination, both from within and without. What Canaan was to Joshua, the soul of every man is to himself,—a promised inheritance; whose actual possession and enjoyment depend upon the expulsion of the foes. Man, as a fallen being, has virtually lost his soul. He has no command over it: it is in the possession, not of himself, but of evil forces. He must re-conquer it, he must drive out the moral Canaanites, he must "cast down every imagination and everything that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," if he would inherit the Canaan of his own soul:-enjoy the creations of its fancy, the thoughts of its intellect, the streams of its affections, and the visions of its hopes. Nor is this all. He must battle with mighty hosts of evils in the outward sphere of his life, as he finds them in literature, commerce, politics, religion,-in the theories and practices of men. Say, Was Joshua's work as great as this? A beast can kill a man, but it requires a divinely-inspired soul to kill an old prejudice, a corrupt passion, a depraved principle. Mere animal excitement will enable a man to confront his fellow on the field of physical conflict, but the calm, intelligent, moral, valor of the highest type, is needed, in silence and solitude, to battle with moral evils. Because men have fighting instincts, some argue the rectitude of physical war. This is a great logical mistake. I admit that man has belligerent propensities, but I deny that the natural and right development of those instincts is the destruction of our fellow men. You may as well argue the rectitude of idolatry from the religious instinct, or of falsehood from the poetic instinct, or of unlawful inquiry into other peoples' concerns from the philosophic instinct, as to argue the rectitude of war from the fighting instinct. Has not man other foes to contend with and master? Has not he to battle with the elements of nature, in order to turn them to his use?with his carnal inclinations in order to bring them into subjection?-with ignorance, crimes, diseases, poverty, in order to help his race? God knows that we have sufficient foes within and without to develop our battling propensities, without murdering our fellow men. I thank our Great Father for endowing us with these war tendencies. Rightly directed they ennoble and bless. All reformers have signally developed this fighting instinct. Luther did so, Knox did so, all great men have ever done so, and must do so. This instinct should not make men wild beasts, but apostles, philanthropists, confessors, reformers. Napoleon III. would have plenty of scope for the development of the fighting instincts of himself and his battalions, if he would direct his attention to the ignorance, the sensuality, the impieties, and the poverty of his own country; aye, even those horrid smells, that impregnate the air of all the towns and cities of France, are, I trow, sufficient to exhaust the prowess and resources of his empire. Secondly: It is a righteous work. Whilst we are of those "weak-minded and fanatical" men who regard war in general as morally wrong; those particular wars, like the one on which Joshua was now entering, were righteous, because God had expressly commanded them. He who is the sole proprietor of all life, has an undoubted right to take it away when and how He please. To argue the rectitude of wars in general, from the few wars which were of old, undertaken by the special command of God, is to the last degree absurd. It appears to me, that the few divinely authorized wars sustain a relation to the moral domain, analogous to the relation which miracles sustain to the laws of the material universe. They are rare exceptions-a few sovereign interpositions. God's law in the material world, is, that man should get food by cultivating the soil, that he should cross the sea by properly constructed vessels; but He has been pleased, before now, to feed men by manna, and to conduct them through surging seas on dry land. God's law in the moral world is, that man should not kill, that all should love as brethren, live in peace, and " overcome evil with good ;" but He has, before now, commanded man to slay his fellows. It is not for us to question His right to do so. "Even so, Father," &c. My position is, that we are not to follow the deviations from His law in either case. What would you think of a man who resolved not to cultivate his soil for bread, but to wait for Providence to feed him, because God once fed the Jews with manna? Or, what would you think of men who would make an attempt to go to America, by walking through the Atlantic, because God once led men through the Red Sea "as on dry land?" But it is just as absurd for men now to attempt to put down evil by war, because God in one or two rare cases |