November 3

Joshua viii. — 1. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not; neither be thou dismayed. Take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given unto thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land.

2. And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.

3. So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai; and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valor, and sent them away by night.

4. And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city.

28. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation unto this day.

29. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until even-tide; and, as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day.

30. Then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal,

As soon as the morals of the Israelitish camp was restored, Ai was taken by laying an ambush upon one side of the city, which rose up and set it on fire, after Joshua, by a feigned flight, had drawn out all the men of the city in pursuit upon the other side. From Ai the victorious army marched northward to the Vale of Shechem, in the very heart of Palestine. Here the people, divided into two sections, were ranged along the slopes of Eba, an I Gerizim, which face one another, at about a third of a mile apart, the whole length of the valley. Here, in the clear, resonant air, the whole law of Moses was read, and its blessings and curses were invoked, by these answering choirs, according to the people should obey or disobey its precepts. With the exception of the giving of the law at Sinai

31. As Moses the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel; as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lifted up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt-offerings unto the Lord, and sacrificed peace-offerings.

32. And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

33. And all Israel, and their elders, and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger as he that was born among them; half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal; as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel.

34. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

35. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.

forty years before, which only a part of that assembly had witnessed, this was the most majestic spectacle in the history of Israel. Before being divided to their several allotments, all the tribes as one nation here entered into a solemn covenant of allegiance to the same constitution. In this vale, Abraham built the first altar to the true God that was erected in Canaan; here Jacob purchased a field which contained a valuable well; here the bones of Joseph were buried; and here Jesus, sitting by Jacob's well, proclaimed the superiority of the truth to the place and time in which it was uttered, and the spirituality of worship, above all names and forms, all places and people. The benediction of his love reaches forth to these latter days, — higher than the mountains, broader than the sea.

APPROPRIATE HYMNS.]

Prayer.

[Nos. 22, 93, 101.

We lift up our eyes unto the hills, whence cometh our help: our help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Thine angels, O Lord! have encamped round about us in the night-season, and thou hast given them charge concerning us to defend us from all evil. We open our eyes to the remembrance of thy mercy, to the consciousness of thy presence, to the sense of our dependence. Only our sins separate us from thee, our loving Father; and we beseech thee to blot these out for thy name's sake, and to receive us in Christ as thy redeemed and reconciled children.

Help us, O Lord! this day, to walk worthy of thy love, and, as obedient children, to do thy will. [May the children of this family remember thee in the days of their youth! May every one of us daily

acknowledge and serve thee!] Keep us, O Lord! we pray thee, from all evil and sin this day. In our intercourse with others may we be true and just, loving and patient, gentle and kind, and so may we commend unto all the gospel of thy grace!

May thy favor be upon the community in which we dwell, upon thy Church, upon our land! Give peace in our time, O Lord! and incline the hearts of our rulers to that which is just and lawful in thy sight. Have mercy upon the poor, the afflicted, the solitary, the bereaved; and cause that the grace of thy gospel shall go forth everywhere to heal the sins and sorrows of all mankind. Finally bring us unto thine everlasting kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.