172 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

out, and all Israel knew how miserably Joshua and the elders
and the princes of Israel had been fooled by these guileful
Gibeonites.

The children of Israel were very angry, as well they
might be, for what patriot likes to see his country and its
leaders made ridiculous in the eyes of the world? There
would have been peril and bloodshed that day but for the
reverence Israel had for an oath sworn before the Lord.
All the congregation murmured against the princes. There
was but one reply:

“But all the princes said unto all the congregation, We
have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel, now there-
fore we may not touch them. This we will do unto them:
we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because
of the oath which we sware unto them. And the princes
said unto them, Let them live, but let them be hewers of
wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation.”

So the Gibeonites became for all time the hewers of
wood and drawers of water to the children of Israel. They
saved their lives by a smart trick, but they had to do all the
“chores.”

It has been necessary to go back to the early history of
israel that we might understand in what way the Gibeonites
were related to the children of Israel. Century after century
passed by, and the Gibeonites were still the hewers of wood
and the drawers of water. The Judges had all passed away,
Samuel was in his grave, and Saul, the first King of Israel,
‘was carrying on his relentless wars.

War at best is cruel and unmerciful, but when waged
merely for the sake of conquest it is terrible. It regards no
oaths however sacred; it has no pity. Its ears are deaf to
all cries, though they be the cries ef women and little chil-