ell mariners to stand off from that dangerous point. So all
the iron-bound coast of moral danger is marked with Saul, and Herod,
and Rehoboam, and Jezebel, and Abimelech. These bad people are
mentioned in the Bible, not only as warnings, but because there were
sometimes flashes of good conduct in their lives worthy of imitation.
God sometimes drives a very straight nail with a very poor hammer.

The city of Shechem had to be taken, and Abimelech and his men were to
do it. I see the dust rolling up from their excited march. I hear the
shouting of the captains and the yell of the besiegers. The swords
clack sharply on the parrying shields, and the vociferation of two
armies in death-grapple is horrible to hear. The battle goes on all
day, and as the sun is setting Abimelech and his army cry "Surrender!"
to the beaten foe. And, unable longer to resist, the city of Shechem
falls; and there are pools of blood, and dissevered limbs, and glazed
eyes looking up beggingly for mercy that war never shows, and dying
soldiers with their head on the lap of mother, or wife, or sister, who
have come out for the last offices of kindness and affection: and a
groan rolls across the city, stopping not, because there is no spot
for it to rest, so full is the place of other groans. A city wounded!
A city dying! A city dead! Wail for Shechem, all ye who know the
horrors of a sacked town!

As I look over the city I can find only one building standing, and
that is the temple of the god Berith. Some soldiers outside of the
city, in a tower, finding that they can no longer defend Shechem, now
begin to look out for their own personal safety, and they fly to this
temple of Berith. They get within the door, shut it, and they say,
"Now we are safe. Abimelech has taken the whole city, but he can not
take this temple of Berith. Here we shall be under the protection of
the gods." Oh, Berith, the god! do your best now for these refugees.
If you have eyes, pity them. If you have hands, help them. If you have
thunderbolts, strike for them.

But how shall Abimelech and his army take this temple of Berith and
the men who are there fortified? Will they do it with sword? Nay.
Will they do it with spear? Nay. With battering-ram, rolled up by
hundred-armed strength, crashing against the walls? Nay. Abimelech
marches his men to a wood in Zalmon. With his ax he hews off a limb of
a tree, and puts that limb upon his own shoulder, and then he says to
his men, "Yo