THE KING’S BUSINESS
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We are told that the “sun tarried in the half of the heaven, and hasted not to g o down.’’ The words “hasted not” does n o t mean to stand still absoultely. When we say that a man does not hasten, we do not necessarily mean that he stands still. Liter ally, the verses may read: “There Joshua is speaking to Jehovah, and says before the eyes of Israel, ‘Sun over Gibeon, tarry ; and moon in the valley of Ajalon; and the sun is tarrying, and the moon stays, till the nation is avenged of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of the upright, and -the sun is tarrying in the half of the heavens, and it ‘does not hasten to set as (or for) a complete day; and there lias not been as this day before it or after it.” One has well said: “If the sun were near setting the rays would fall on Gibeon on the East, and it would continue in sight, as it does at the pole of the earth for weeks together; and there was no day like it, when, his light shining the night through, two consecutive days formed one day. The miracle remains; it was the work of Almighty God. A slight dip of the pole, or deflection of the rays of light, or ways unknown to men; might have accomplished this remarkable miracle.” Was there any sufficient reason why God should thus miraculously interpose in the behalf of Israel? We think so. Israel, for probably the first time, was confronted by the combined forces of the Ammonites and the Gibeonites, the objects of whose wor ship were the sun and moon. In a sense the battle was a battle between the gods of these nations and Jehovah, the God of Israel. This being the case we can see the reason why > it should be shown that day who was the real and true God. The gods of the Ammonites and Gibeonites were powerless before the'God of Israel, and in deed were compelled to favor God’s chosen people and minister to the destruction of their own deluded worshipers. The plagues of Egypt were a battle between the gods of Egypt and Jehovah, the God of Israel. Why not this battle then?
JONAH AND THE WHALE II. Did the Whale Swallow Jonah? Objections to the reliability of the Bible revelation have been made on the ground of the unreasonableness of the story of Jonah and the whale. It is contended by some, though their number is not by far so numer ous as formerly, that the record of this event is not reliable because it is impos sible- for a whale to swallow a man—not having a gullet large enough. Further, it is contended that no man could live in the belly of a whale for so long a time. Since the publication of Bullen’s “Cruise of the Cachalot,” in which the author des cribes his whaling expeditions, and declares facts concerning these sea-monsters which harmonize perfectly with the Bible story, sceptics have been compelled to swallow their own objections. Any one who has read Bullen’s book will have some idea of the size and habits o f that mighty sea-monster, the sperm whale. Mr. Bullen is an experienced whaler, and Speaks of what he has actually seen. He tells in more places than one how they caught whales of “such gigantic propor tions” as “over seventy feet long, with a breadth of bulk quite in proportion to such a vast length,” the head of which alone “the skipper himself estimated to w e ig h fifteen tons.” The critics of the story of Jonah based their arguments for the impossibility of a whale swallowing a man on their knowl edge of the structure of a Greenland whale only, whereas we now know that there are over sixty kinds of whales. Contrary to the opinion expressed by those who claim it to be a physical impos sibility for a whale to swallow a man on account of its not having a gullet large enough—that it could not even swallow a herring, much less a man—Dr. Thomas Beale, a surgeon of London, in his work entitled “Observations on the Natural His tory of the Spermecete Whale” (Ed. 1849, p. 294), in describing a sea-monstef of this kitld says. ‘ The throat is capacious
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