“Twelve stones” it is said, were set up at Gilgal to commemorate the passage over Jordan.”

“Ay, in thy book we read it.”

“But mark the intention, to which no lying imposture durst have referred,—­to the end, it is written, that when the children of those who had witnessed this miracle, and their children’s children, should ask their meaning, it should be told them.  Now the miracle for which these stones were set up as a memorial by the eye-witnesses themselves, could not, as before proved, have been imposed upon the people at the time it happened, had it not really occurred.”

“All this I can safely grant.  Yet thou lackest wherewith to conclude thine argument.”

“Bear with me, my lord, until I have made an end.  Let us suppose, for one moment, there was no such miracle wrought as this same passage over Jordan.”

“Which supposition of thine I do hold to be the truth as firmly as I believe your revelation is an imposture.”

“And yet if it should be true, my lord?” The minister said this in a tone that made the listener start.  He bit his lips.  But the feeling had subsided, as, with a sharp and hurried accent, he exclaimed—­

“Why this pause?  I am prepared to listen.”

“These stones,” continued the divine, “were, of necessity, well known as public monuments existing at the time when these writings were first rehearsed in the ears of all the people, because they are here referred to as testimonials of the event.  But supposing them to have been set up on some unknown occasion, as you say, and that designing men in after-ages invented the book of Joshua, affirming it was written at the time of that imaginary event by Joshua himself, adducing this pile of stones in evidence of its truth, what is the answer which every one who heard it must have made to this witless falsehood?  ’We know this pile of stones,’ they would say; ’but of such an origin as thou hast related we have, not heard, nor even of this book of Joshua.  Where has it been concealed, and from whence was it brought forth?  Besides, it solemnly inculcates that this miraculous event, our fathers’ passage over Jordan, should be taught their children and children’s children from that day forward, who were to be shown and carefully instructed as to the meaning and design of this very monument; but of this we have not so much as heard, nor has thy history been handed down to us from our forefathers.  It is a lying testimony, therefore, and we cannot receive it.’  Yet do we find the children of Israel commemorating, handing down, and instructing their children from age to age into the meaning and design of these memorials, which instruction must at some time or another have had a beginning, having its commencement with the very events to which they refer, which events it would then have been impossible to make the people believe against the plain evidence of their senses.  Is the chain complete, my lord?”