he land.

So he sent twelve men who walked through the land and saw the people,
and the cities and the fields and the fruits. They were forty days
searching the land and they brought from the brook Eschol a cluster of
grapes so large that two of them bore it on a staff between them. They
also brought some pomegranates and figs.

[Illustration: The return of the spies]

When they came into the camp they said that the country where they had
been was good, and flowing with milk and honey, but the people were
strong, and the cities had very high walls. They said they saw giants
there.

Caleb, who was one of the twelve, and a good and true man, said:

"Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome
it," but the men who were with him were afraid of the giants, and said
they felt like grasshoppers before them. Then there was great weeping
among the people all that night, and they said,

"Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt." Moses and Aaron
were greatly troubled, but the two good men, Caleb and Joshua, stood up
and encouraged the people, saying that they need not fear, for the Lord
had given them the land, yet they were ready to stone Caleb and Joshua.

Then the Lord spake to Moses from the Tabernacle, and the people saw
his glory. He said the people were unbelieving and disobedient, and
for this reason they could not enter the promised land. He said, that
all who were twenty years old and upward would die in the wilderness,
except Caleb and Joshua, who had followed the Lord wholly. He also
said that the people would be forty years in the wilderness, and only
the youth and the children would live to enter Canaan.

There was mourning and repentance then because of the word of the Lord,
and the people promised again to believe and obey, but over and over
they lost faith and rebelled, and great storms of trouble fell upon
them.

Once the earth opened and many were swallowed up; a sudden sickness
destroyed thousands. Near Mount Hor, where Aaron died, fiery serpents
ran among the people, and all who were bitten by them died; but there
was full forgiveness and cure for those who turned to the Lord. When
the fiery serpents entered the camp Moses lifted a brazen image of a
serpent up on a pole so high that it could be seen all over the camp,
and whoever looked upon it lived. It was a sign of the coming Saviour.

Between the marches and the battles with heathen tribes, some o