The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-09-14

was, OF all places which could be chosen,
the most appropriate as the centre OF a
national revival Here Gen. II: g.
| Abraham had first erected 10 Canaan
the altar to Jehovah; here he received
the prophetic intimation of the Spirit
that his posterity should possess the
land in which his people we're then pill
| grims and strangers. Here Joseph had
been buried. Here, twenty five years
before, by the altar of unhewn stones
Joshua had caused thu whole Law of
Moses to be read to Israel; the curses
on the law-breakers had been impress
lively announced from Ebal on the one
side of the valley; the blessings upon the
law keepers had been with like impress
iveness declared from Mount Gerizim on
the other side of the valley (Deut., IL:
20; Joshua 8: 30-35) Appropriately to
this scene Of sacred memorials Joshua
summoned the representatives of the
lapsing nation.
1t kindles the imagination to dwell on
the scene which our lesson passage brings
| to our mental vision. There are the
representatives of Israel, great host
There rises before them the venerable
form of the heroic soldier whose genius
and courage consecrated to Jehovah,
had won for Israel it's Promised Land.
He is the last but one Of his generation,
the generation in which Moses was the
chief actor. Caleb, we may be sure, was
present, in his green old age, coming
| from his Hebron, Eleazar the high priest
is there, and Phineas his son. 1t is
mighty throng of national dignitaries
and leaders. But the centre and soul of
the scene is the venerable Joshua. He
is full of the power of authority, the per-
suasiveness of appeal, the inspiration OF
faith.
Joshua had been won't to be silent
man. Time was when he could permit
Caleb to be his spokesman. But now
he has a message for his people which
no one else can utter-a message freight
gu Will llI6 anu ucdbhy OAOOl lOdQ VI
the Spirit he is now prophet.
1. JOshua's Solemn Charge to
the PeOple,-vs. IA, 10.
The old soldier first, and with SOL
dier's terseness, brings to the minds OF
the people their peculiar national history
from Abraham's day,-the history which
has made them peculiar people with
mission like that of no other people in
the earth Tvs. 1-13). Could they doubt
Gods leading of Israel? Then, in
home thrust that must have made all
the guilty ones quail before him, he
draws the moral of this peculiar history:
Fear the Lord, and SERGE him in SINGER
ity and IN truth; and put aacay the gods
aohich qour fathers served beyond the
Riuer and IN Egypt. A home thrust
indeed The teraphim, the household
images, which they had brought from
beyond the Euphrates, and the Gods Of
the Egyptians, which in their bondage
they had learned to regard with favor,
had yet their devotees in Israel. And
this idolatry, with its attendant immor-
alities. was destroying the stamina of
Israel and threatening it's destruction as
the nation of God.
Joshua gives to the people the alterna-
tive of serving Jehovah fully, or Of yield
ing themselves fully to the idolatry from
which they have risen. If 1t seem eviI
unto you to serUe the Lord. choose ye
this dag aUhom ye aUiH serve. He asks
them if they really desire to return to
the gods beyond the river, that is, to the
idolatry from which Abraham had fed.
He asks them if they really desire to be
come devotees of the gods of the Am
monites,- adding with penetrating sug-
gestiveness, IN ichose land ye daoeH.
The gods who had not availed for the
| Ammonites, their own people, could not
be wisely expected to avail for the Is
raelites. a foreign people.
So did the old soldier, with copspicu-
GUS skill. state the issue then before the
people.
Which will they choose, to be faithful
| to their traditions from the day of Abra-
ham, and believers in Jehovah. or peo-
pie consecrated to the sensualism of the
vanishing gods of the idolaters?
Joshua then, with admirable tact, as-
serted the majestic power of his own per-
sonality: As for me and mg house, ace
aUiU SERGE the Lord. He has, in his
previous life, shrunk from self -assertion.
Now, because of the subtle danger that
threatens his nation, he does not hest
tate to assert the moral power of his
own example.
2. The People Choose to Serve
Jehovah, VS.. 1921.
The people answered, God forbid that
ace should forsake our Lord to serce
other gods. They I've. IL, 49, make, fur
thermore, somewhat pretentious con-
fession of faith. Because Jehovah has
done so much for them, to honor them
above other people. they propose still to
acknowledge him their God. But they
say nothing of putting away the other
gods; they say nothing of cleansing their
lives completely from the moral polula-
Ill. =. al