was fallen upon his face to the ground before the Ark, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold.  Furthermore, the men of Ashdod were destroyed with a secret and dreadful disease.  They thereupon determined to get rid of the Ark, and they sent it to Gath.  When it came to Gath the pestilence fell upon the men of Gath also, and they sent it away to Ekron, and the pestilence fell also upon the men of Ekron.  Then the wise men of the Philistines were called together, and they counselled that the Ark should be returned with a trespass-offering to Israel, and that it should be carried in a new cart by two milch kine on which there had come no yoke, and that their calves should be brought home from them.  Then if the kine of their own accord took the cart to Bethshemesh, it would be known that it was the God of Israel who had plagued the land; but if they refused to go, then it might be chance which had done it.  The Ark was placed in the cart, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon the kine.  Remembering their calves, they nevertheless went straight along the road to Bethshemesh, lowing as they went, and turning not aside to the right hand or to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh.  The men of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it, and the cart came into the field of Joshua the Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone, and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine as a burnt-offering.  And the Levites took down the Ark, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of stone were, and put them on the great stone, and the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offering and sacrifices.  When the Philistines had seen all these things, and when they knew that the plague in their land was stayed, did they acknowledge the Lord God?  How should they, seeing that they were not His elect?

The children of Israel continually turned aside to the lewd gods of the heathen, and at times it seemed as if the whole earth would be given up to the abominations of the Canaanites.  The Lord had brought us out of Egypt, and through the desert.  He had appeared to us on Sinai, and had given us His commandments, by which alone we could live.  He had revealed unto us that we should be pure, and separate ourselves from the filth around us.  He had roused up Moses, and Joshua, and the Judges, all of whom strove to preserve and ever build higher and stronger the wall which was to protect us, so that the sacred Law and the service of the one God might continue.  Israel was but a handful in the midst of Philistines and Amalekites, nations which worshipped Baal with fornication and all kinds of uncleanness, and Israel was ever at the point of mingling with them.  Then it would have been forgotten as they will be forgotten; but if it will only abide in the Law, as given in thunder and lightning in the wilderness, it will be great, when, except for their struggles with Israel, the recollection of Amalekite and Philistine shall have perished.