participate in the expedition, fell upon the northern cities of Judah, plundered them, and killed three thousand of the inhabitants, and, advancing to Jerusalem with savage ferocity, they broke down four hundred cubits of the city wall, and rifled both the palace and the temple.

FANNY. That the treasures of the temple should allure the heathen enemies of Judah, is not surprising; but that the posterity of Abraham should have themselves become so lost to all sense of decorum, as to commit the sacrilege of robbing that august depository, is really extraordinary.

MRS. M. It is not surprising, my dear, that they who had cast off the Sovereign, should cease to venerate his earthly habitation. We are very apt to be disgusted by the impiety of the Israelites, but we may often moderate our feelings, by comparing them with ourselves. How often have conquerors, who called themselves Christians, been enriched by the spoils of Christian temples? Pride and ambition are the same in all ages; education and opportutunity do but vary their forms. Uzziah, to whose reign we are now come, was another example of the fatal influence of prosperity. He was virtuous and became powerful. The civil honours of the administration were then not enough. He went to the sanctuary and took a censor to burn incense, but his presumption excluded him ever after from that holy place-for resenting the freedom of the priests, who reproved his invasion of their office, he was smitten with leprosy, and could no more approach the altar.*

His

Jotham, his son, affords a more pleasing picture. reign was short, but beneficial, to the kingdom; the waste

* Lev. xiii. 46.

places were repaired, cities and fortresses were erected, and large subsidies obtained from the neighbouring kings.

Again every thing was reversed in the succeeding reign of Ahaz, a most abominable wretch, who exceeded all his predecessors, and all the kings of Israel, in depravity; for he sacrificed his own children in imitation of the heathens ! Greater provocations never reached the throne of Justice: accordingly he was severely chastised by Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin king of Syria.

Confederating together, they invaded Judah with an inmense army, besieged Ahaz in the metropolis, and ravaged his territories in every direction. But the punishment of the king, not the total ruin of the empire, being the design of this visitation, Ahaz was encouraged to defend the city by the prophet ISAIAH, who had now begun to shed the lustre of his sublime prophecy on the favoured land. Success crowned his resistance, and his enemies went away disappointed. The heart of Ahaz, however, remaining untouched by his merciful preservation, another chastisement by the hand of the two kings, in the following year, more severely afflicted him. The valuable port of Elath was taken by the Syrians, and the Jews* were driven thence; whilst the Israelites slew an hundred and twenty thousand of their brethren, and carried away captives to the enormous amount of two hundred thousand! These poor people had the good fortune to return to their country. Oded, a prophet in Samaria, reproving the victors for their excessive cruelty to their kinsmen, the elders would not suffer them to be brought into the city; but

This is the first place in Scripture where this name occurs, 2 Kings, xvi. 6.

comforted and refreshed them, and conducted them safely back as far as Jericho. The confederated kings were both slain soon after, as had been foretold by Isaiah, Pekah by his servant Hoshea, as I have already told you in the history of Israel-and Rezin by the Assyrians.

Scarcely was Judah delivered from these powerful enemies, before her territory was invaded on the south and west, by the Philistines and Edomites, who took several cities and villages. In this new distress, instead of asking relief from the gracious hand which had before brought him unmerited deliverance, the degenerate king of Judah sent to Assyria for assistance. Tiglath-pileser, who now reigned, came indeed at his invitation, but it was only to reduce him still lower, by receiving large presents from the nobles, and gold and silver from the temple, the stipulated price of his alliance, without doing any real service to the distracted country. But the treasures of Jerusalem assisted Tiglath in his meditated hostilities against the neighbouring powers. Having brought an army into that quarter, under the pretext of relieving Judah, on his way back, he siezed upon Galilee in the north of Israel, and all their dominions beyond Jordan; then marching on to Syria, he put an end to that kingdom, after it had lasted ten generations, having been founded in the reign of Solo

mon.*

After all these mortifications, and notwithstanding the ruinous treachery of Tiglath-pileser, Ahaz condescended to meet him on his return to Damascus from the conquest of Syria.

CATHERINE. Perhaps this seeming respect was extorted by his dependence on Assyria.

* See Prideaux, vol. i. p. 4.

MRS. M. It is very likely but his corrupted inclination kept pace with his political degradation. At Damascus he was so delighted with the form of a pagan altar, that he sent a model to Jerusalem, and commanded the priests to erect one, in all respects like it, against his return. In short, altars were now seen in every corner of the land, and finally the temple doors were closed, and the worship of Jehovah entirely suppressed!

Happily for suffering Judah, these outrages were arrested by the death of their tyrant in the flower of his age, and the institutions of their fathers again restored by his suc

cessor.

Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, was probably indebted to the instructions of his mother, who was the daughter of a zealous minister of the true religion, that he came to the throne with an utter abhorrence of the prevailing impiety. No sooner was the power in his hands, than the groves and images were pulled down, the temples opened and purified, the Levites gathered in from their retreats, and all the officers of the sanctuary again established in the order appointed by David. Sin offerings were presented, and as early as possible preparation was made for the celebration of a grand passover. Hezekiah himself superintended every thing, and exhorted the priests to be diligent, that atonement might speedily be made for the transgressions of their fathers, and the wrath of heaven be turned away from all Israel! This reformation commenced in the beginning of the first month, but such was the desolation and impurity of the temple, that it was not ready for the passover, until the second month; it was, therefore, determined by the king and his counsellors, to observe the festival on the fourteenth day of the second month, instead of

the fourteenth of the first as originally appointed. By this arrangement, too, a sufficient time was allowed to send expresses throughout the Holy Land, proclaiming the intended passover. This remarkable event took place in the reign of Hosea, the last king of the revolted tribes, and after they had been so greatly humbled by the first captivity of their subjects by Tiglath-pileser. The good king Hezekiah, compassionating the oppressed and precarious condition of Israel, affectionately invited them also to repair to Jerusalem, persuading them by the interesting consideration, that their prayers and humiliation might be the means of restoring their relatives their native coun

try!

Some of these infatuated people read the royal rescript only with derision, but many gladly accepted the opportunity, and the feast was held with great splendour and joy, not only seven days, but another seven, to manifest their gratitude and willingness to return to the gracious Being whom they had so long forsaken.

FANNY. Did not the revolt of the ten tribes exclude them from the right of assisting in the solemnities of the annual festivals at Jerusalem ?

MRS. M. By no means. They were still the posterity of Jacob, and their right to all the privileges bestowed on that people was never questioned. There is reason to believe, that there were always individuals, amidst the utmost profligacy of the nation, who would willingly have availed themselves of those advantages: but all the institutions of their religion, and the passover itself, had come to be very carelessly performed, or were often entirely neglected by Judah as well as Israel. Profane authors, to whom we are not unfrequently indebted for the elucidation of