Chapter LXXXV.

THE BLESSINGS OF GOD'S PEOPLE WHILE THEY SERVED THE LORD.

THE children of Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that He had done for Israel.

And so long as God's people served the Lord their God, and kept His covenant, the Lord blessed them in that rich and happy land which He had given them. The fear of the Lord was upon those nations which still dwelt in their land; they feared to come forth against them, and could not stand before them.

Those nations which the Lord left in the land of Canaan, served to prove Israel; to prove whether they would hearken to the commandments of the Lord, which He commanded their fathers by Moses. God tried His people in the

promised land, as of old He had tried Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, when He said that they should not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And "if Israel had loved the Lord their God, and walked in His ways, then He would soon have put down their enemies," and driven them forth from among them. Then He would have fed them with His choicest gifts; and "God, even their own God, would have given them His blessing for ever."

Judges ii. 7; iii. 1. 4. Ps. lxxxi. 14—17.

THE END.

GILBERT & RIVINGTON, Printers, St. John's Square, London.