do his own killing.

"Then," read Cousin Bill J., in a voice meant to convey the augustness of
Deity, "thou shalt kill the ram and take of his blood and put it upon the
tip of the right ear of Aaron and upon the tip of the right ear of his
sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of
their right foot." So you didn't have to wash all over in the blood. He
agreed with Clytie, who remarked that no one could ever have found out how
to do it right unless God had told. The God-given directions that ensued
for making the water of separation from "the ashes of a red heifer" he did
not find edifying; but some verses after that seemed more practicable.
"And thou shalt take of the ram," continued the reader in majestic
cadence, "the fat and the rump and the fat that covereth the inwards, and
the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is upon
them--"

Here was detail with a satisfying minuteness; and all this was for
"a wave-offering" to be waved before the Lord--which was indeed an
interesting thought.

"If God was so careful of His children in these small matters," said
Clytie; "no wonder they believed He would care for them in graver matters,
and no wonder they looked forward so eagerly to the coming of His Son,
whom He promised should be sent to save them from His wrath."

Through God's succeeding minute directions for the building and upholstery
of His tabernacle, "with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and
purple and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them,"
the interest of the little boys rather languished; likewise through His
regulations about such dry matters as slavery, divorce, and polygamy. His
directions for killing witches and for stoning the ox that gores a man or
woman had more of colour in them. But there was no real interest until the
good God promised His children to bring them in unto the Amorites and the
Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the
Jebusites, to "cut them off." It was not uninteresting to know that God
put Moses in a cleft of the rock and covered it with His hand when He
passed by, thus permitting Moses a partial view of the divine person. But
the actual fighting of battles was thereafter the chief source of
interest. For God was a mighty God of battles, never weary of the glories
of slaughter. When it was plain that He could make a handful of two
thousand Israelites slay two hundred thousan