ren of Israel stayed nearly forty years; and all because they would
not trust in the Lord.

THE STORY OF GIDEON AND HIS THREE HUNDRED SOLDIERS

At last the people of Israel came into the promised land, but they did
evil in the sight of the Lord in worshipping Baal; and the Lord left
them to suffer for their sins. Once the Midianites, living near the
desert on the east of Israel, came against the tribes. The two tribes
that suffered the hardest fate were Ephraim, and the part of Manasseh on
the west of Jordan. For seven years the Midianites swept over their land
every year, just at the time of harvest, and carried away all the crops
of grain, until the Israelites had no food for themselves, and none for
their sheep and cattle. The Midianites brought also their own flocks and
camels without number, which ate all the grass of the field.

The people of Israel were driven away from their villages and their
farms, and were compelled to hide in the caves of the mountains. And if
any Israelite could raise any grain, he buried it in pits covered with
earth, or in empty winepresses, where the Midianites could not find it.

One day, a man named Gideon was threshing out wheat in a hidden place,
when he saw an angel sitting-under an oak-tree. The angel said to him:
"You are a brave man, Gideon, and the Lord is with you. Go out boldly,
and save your people from the power of the Midianites." Gideon answered
the angel:

[Illustration: _The angel touched the offering with his staff_]

"O, Lord, how can I save Israel? Mine is a poor family in Manasseh, and
I am the least in my father's house."

And the Lord said to him: "Surely I will be With you, and I will help
you drive out the Midianites."

Gideon felt that it was the Lord who was talking with him, in the form
of an angel. He brought an offering, and laid it on a rock before the
angel. Then the angel touched the offering with his staff. At once, a
fire leaped up and burned the offering; and then the angel vanished from
his sight. Gideon was afraid when he saw this; but the Lord said to him:
"Peace be unto you, Gideon, do not fear, for I am with you."

On the spot where the Lord appeared to Gideon, under an oak tree, near
the village of Ophrah, in the tribe-land of Manasseh, Gideon built an
altar and called it by a name which means: "The Lord is peace." This
altar was standing long afterward in that place.

Then the Lord told Gideon that before setting his people fre