, which
completed the destruction of his exhausted troops. The glory of the
victory is wholly ascribed to the Lord God of Israel; while the rain,
the thunder, lightning, swollen river, and "the stars in their courses,"
are all described, in their subordinate places, as only his
instruments--the weapons of his arsenal.

"Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir,
When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,
The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,
The clouds also dropped down water;
The mountains also melted from before the Lord,
Even that Sinai, from before the Lord God of Israel."

Then, after describing the battle, she alludes to the celestial
artillery, and to the effects of the storm in swelling the river, and
sweeping away the fugitives who had sought the fords:

"They fought from heaven;
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera;
The river Kishon swept them away;
That ancient river, the river Kishon."[291]

After describing some further particulars the hymn concludes with an
allusion to the clearing away of the tempest and the appearance of the
unclouded sun over the field of victory:

"So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord;
But let them that love thee be as the sun, when he goeth forth
in his might."

Where is there the least allusion here to any controlling influence of
the stars? You might just as well say, "The Bible ascribes a controlling
influence over the destinies of men, to the river Kishon;" for they are
both spoken of, in the same language, as instruments in God's hand for
the destruction of his enemies.

But it is objected, "Even by this explanation you have the Bible
representing the stars as causing the rain." Not so fast. If a man were
very ignorant, and had never heard of anything falling from the sky but
rain, he might think so. And if the Bible did attribute to the stars
some such influence over the vapors of the atmosphere, as experience
shows the moon to possess over the ocean, are you able to demonstrate
its absurdity?

Deborah, however, when she sang of the stars _in their courses_ fighting
against Sisera, was describing a phenomenon very different from a fall
of rain--was, in fact, describing a fall of aerolites upon the army of
Sisera. Multitudes of stones have fallen from the sky, and not less than
five hundred such falls are recorded.

"On September 1, 1814, a few minutes before midday, while the sk