Miriams Schooling and Other Papers | Page 3

of the great idol. The angel under the oak was before my

father's eyes, the soft, sweet voice, telling him he should not die, was in
his ears; but not even the Lord God can conquer our fears, and although
my father was a brave man and saved Israel, no man ever had worse
sinkings of heart than he. It was as if he had more courage and more
fear than his fellows. He did what the Lord said unto him, but he was
afraid to do it by day, for not only was his tribe against him, but his
father's house also. He took ten of his servants, and when the city
awoke one morning the altar of Baal was cast down, the altar to the
Lord God stood on the hill, and there lay on it the half-burnt logs of the
image of Baal. Our nation has never believed in Baal as it has believed
in the Lord God. How should it believe in Baal? Baal has done nothing
for it, but the Lord God brought us from Egypt through the desert, and
was the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. Nevertheless, when
the altar of Baal was cast down and the idol was destroyed the people
demanded the death of Gideon, and you know that at this day, though
Baal is a false god, and in their hearts they confess it, they would
murder us if we said anything against him: they went therefore to Joash
and told him to bring forth his son that they might slay him. These, my
children, were not the Midianites nor the Amalekites, but our own
nation. At the very time when the heathen were upon us we turned from
the Lord to Baal, and sought to destroy the man who could have
rescued us. Thus we have ever done, and we are surely a race accursed.
But Joash secretly contemned Baal, although until now he had not
ventured to say anything against him. It made him bold to see how his
son and his servants had over-thrown the altar and burnt the idol which
lay there charred and unresisting. He stood up before the altar, and
facing the mob which howled at him; asked them why they should take
upon themselves to plead for Baal: "If he be a god, let him plead for
himself, because one hath cast down his altar." The charred logs never
stirred; there was no sound in the sky; Joash was not struck dead; Baal
was proved to be nothing. That was a sight to see that morning: the
ashes smouldering in the sunlight, the raging crowd, Gideon and his
fellows behind Joash, and Joash calling on Baal to avenge himself if he
was a god as his worshippers pretended. Ah, if that had been Jehovah's
altar! When Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, fire
came down from the Lord and devoured them. When Miriam spoke
against His servant she became a leper; and when Korah, Dathan, and

Abiram blasphemed, they were swallowed up in the pit. But Baal could
not move a breath of heaven on his behalf. What kind of a god is he? A
god who cannot punish those who insult him is but a word.
As for Gideon, he grew in strength. Nothing happened to him because
he had thus dared Baal. He went about his work daily; no judgment fell
on him, and nobody dared to meddle with him.
Soon afterwards the Midianites and Amalekites, who had withdrawn
for a while, overspread the land again, and pitched in the valley of
Jezreel. Gideon having suffered nothing for his insult to Baal, had
become bolder. Moreover, his tribe, the Abiezrites, had seen that he had
suffered nothing. Thus it came to pass that when the Spirit of the Lord
came upon him; and he blew a trumpet, all Abiezer followed him. Not
only so; he sent messengers through Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and
Naphtali, and they came up to meet him, the very people who a few
months before would have stoned him. They thronged after him, and
now professed themselves believers in Jehovah. They were not
hypocrites. They really believed now, after a fashion, that Baal could
not help them. Their fault was that they believed one thing one day and
another thing the next. That has always been the fault of the people.
Your grandfather did not despise them for their instability. So far as
they were not stable to Baal it was good, and he pitied them as they
flocked to his standard, hoping that he could deliver them. He blew the
trumpet, and at the simple blast of that trumpet in each village and town
the nation seemed to rise as one man,