her, Zebulun, and
Naphtali, and they came up to meet him, the very people who a few
months before would have stoned him. They thronged after him, and now
professed themselves believers in Jehovah. They were not hypocrites.
They really believed now, after a fashion, that Baal could not help
them. Their fault was that they believed one thing one day and another
thing the next. That has always been the fault of the people. Your
grandfather did not despise them for their instability. So far as they
were not stable to Baal it was good, and he pitied them as they flocked
to his standard, hoping that he could deliver them. He blew the
trumpet, and at the simple blast of that trumpet in each village and
town the nation seemed to rise as one man, such strength was there in
its tones. These men had been idolaters, and it might have been
thought that to turn them all would have taken years of persuasion; but
no, at the simple sound of the trumpet the religion of Baal vanished.

Gideon was now at the head of a great host; he had been favoured with
visions from the Most High; the angel of the Lord had appeared to him;
he had burnt the image; and yet now, when the army was round him, fear
fell upon him again, and he doubted if he could save Israel, or if God
would keep His promise. So it always was with him, as I have already
said. He therefore prayed for another sign, and the Lord did not
rebuke him, as a man would have done if his promise had been
mistrusted. Gideon's test was strange; he did not pray that he might
see the angel again, for the thoughts that came into his mind were
always strange, not like those of other men, and were unaccountable
even to himself. That night the fleece of wool on the ground was wet
and the earth was dry. He prayed yet again, and still God was tender
to him, for He knows the weakness of the creatures He has made. This
time the fleece was dry and the earth was wet, and Gideon thereupon
rose up early with all the host, and moved towards the host of Midian,
till he came in sight of them as they lay in the valley by the hill of
Moreh.

But the Lord would not have so many to do His work, and most of them
were afraid and useless. He therefore commanded Gideon to send away
all who were frightened, and ten thousand only were left. These ten
thousand were still too many, for most of them were impatient, not able
to restrain themselves, and likely to fail, either through fear or
foolhardines