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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:16:43 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:16:43 -0700 |
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diff --git a/25363-h/25363-h.htm b/25363-h/25363-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b0da74 --- /dev/null +++ b/25363-h/25363-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2780 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> + <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> + <title>Bible Lands</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2, by +Rev. P. C. Headley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 + Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms + +Author: Rev. P. C. Headley + +Release Date: May 7, 2008 [EBook #25363] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALF HOURS IN BIBLE LANDS, VOL 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Don Kostuch + + + + + +</pre> + +<big><big>[Transcriber's Note: Pictures are positioned as they are in +the original text,<br> +often far from the related passage. The text has been linked to the +picture.]<br> +<br> +<br> +HALF HOURS IN BIBLE LANDS,<br> +<br> +OR,<br> +<br> +STORIES AND SKETCHES FROM THE SCRIPTURES AND THE EAST.<br> +<br> +PATRIARCHS, KINGS, AND KINGDOMS.<br> +<br> +BY REV. P. C. HEADLEY,<br> +AUTHOR OF "THE WOMEN OF THE BIBLE,"<br> +"HARVEST WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT,"<br> +"THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE,"<br> +"MASSACHUSETTS IN THE REBELLION,"<br> +ETC., ETC., ETC.<br> +<br> +WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.<br> +<br> +PHILADELPHIA:<br> +PUBLISHED BY JOHN E. POTTER & CO.,<br> +No. 617 SANSOM STREET.<br> +<br> +Entered according to Act of Congress,<br> +in the year 1867, by JOHN E. POTTER & CO.,<br> +In the Clerk's Office of the<br> +United States District Court in and for the Eastern<br> +District of Pennsylvania.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Isaac_and_Esau"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 572px; height: 718px;" + alt="" src="images/0T1.JPG"><br> + Isaac and Esau<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Job_and_His_Three_Friends."></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 563px; height: 714px;" + alt="" src="images/0T2.JPG"><br> + Job and His Three Friends.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND.<br> +<br> +PATRIARCHS, KINGS, AND KINGDOMS.<br> +<br> +<br> +SCENES IN THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS.<br> +<br> +<br> +The patriarchs might be called family kings--the divinely appointed<br> +rulers of households. They were the earliest sovereigns under God of<br> +which we have any account. Their authority was gradually extended by the<br> +union of households, whose retinue of servants was often large, and<br> +their wealth very great. The founder and leader of the patriarchal line<br> +chosen by God from the wealthy nomades, or wandering farmers of the<br> +fruitful valleys, was Abram. A worshipper of the Infinite One, he<br> +married Sarai, a maiden of elevated piety and personal beauty. And<br> +doubtless they often walked forth together beneath the nightly sky,<br> +whose transparent air in that latitude made the stars impressively--<br> +<br> +"The burning blazonry of God!"<br> +<br> +Upon the hill-tops around, were the observatories and altars of Chaldean<br> +philosophy, whose disciples worshipped the host of Heaven. In the<br> +serenity of such an hour, with the white tents reposing in the distance,<br> +and the "soul-like sound" of the rustling forest alone breaking the<br> +stillness, it would not be strange, as they gazed on flaming Orion and<br> +the Pleiades, if they had bowed with the Devotee of Light, while--<br> +<br> + "Beneath his blue and beaming sky,<br> + He worshipped at their lofty shrine,<br> + And deemed he saw with gifted eye,<br> + The Godhead in his works divine."<br> +<br> +But a purer illumination than streamed from that radiant dome, brought<br> +near in his majesty the Eternal, and like the holy worshippers of Eden,<br> +they adored with subdued and reverent hearts, their infinite Father.<br> +<br> +There is great sublimity and wonderful power in the purity and growth of<br> +religious principle, in circumstances opposed to its manifestation. The<br> +temptations resisted--the earnest communion with each other--the<br> +glorious aspirations and soarings of imagination, when morning broke<br> +upon the summits, and evening came down with its stars, and its rising<br> +moon, flooding with glory nature in her repose. These, and a thousand<br> +lovely and touching scenes of that pastoral life, are all unrecorded.<br> +The great events in history, and bold points in character, are seized by<br> +the inspired penman as sufficient to mark the grand outline of God's<br> +providential and moral government over the world, and his care of his<br> +people.<br> +<br> +Just when it would best accomplish his designs, which are ever marching<br> +to their fulfillment, Jehovah called to Abram, and bade him go to a<br> +distant land which he would show him. With his father-in-law, and with<br> +Lot, his flocks and herds, he journeyed toward Palestine. When he<br> +arrived at Haran, in Mesopotamia, pleased with the country, and probably<br> +influenced by the declining health of the aged Terah, he took up his<br> +residence there. Here he remained till the venerable patriarch, Sarai's<br> +father, died. The circle of relatives bore him to the grave, and kept<br> +the days of mourning. But the dutiful daughter wept in the solitary<br> +grief of an orphan's heart. A few years before she had lost a brother,<br> +and now the father to whom she was the last flower that bloomed on the<br> +desert of age, and who lavished his love upon her, was buried among<br> +strangers.<br> +<br> +Then the command to move forward to his promised inheritance came again<br> +to Abram. With Sarai he journeyed on among the hills, encamping at night<br> +beside a mountain spring, and beneath the unclouded heavens arching<br> +their path, changeless and watchful as the love of God--exiles by the<br> +power of their simple faith in him. Soon as they reached Palestine,<br> +Abram consecrated its very soil by erecting a family altar, first in the<br> +plain of Moreh, and again on the summits that catch the smile of morning<br> +near the hamlet of Bethel.<br> +<br> +Months stepped away, rapidly as silently, old associations wore off, and<br> +Abram was a wealthy and happy man in the luxuriant vales of Canaan. His<br> +flocks dotted the plains, and his cattle sent down their lowing from<br> +encircling hills. But more than these to him was the affection of his<br> +beautiful wife. Her eye watched his form along the winding way, when<br> +with the ascending sun he went out on the dewy slopes, and kindled with<br> +a serene welcome when at night-fall he returned for repose amid the<br> +sacred joys of home.<br> +<br> +At length there came on a fearful famine. The rain was withholden, and<br> +the dew shed its benediction no more upon the earth. He was compelled to<br> +seek bread at the court of Pharaoh, or perish. Knowing the power of<br> +female beauty, and the want of principle among the Egyptian princes, he<br> +was afraid of assassination and the captivity of Sarai which would<br> +follow. Haunted with this fear, he told her to say that she was his<br> +sister--which was not a direct falsehood, but only so by implication.<br> +According to the Jewish mode of reckoning relationship, she might be<br> +called a sister; and Abram stooped to this prevarication under that<br> +terrible dread which, in the case of Peter, drove a true disciple of<br> +Christ to the brink of apostacy and despair.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Peter_denying_his_Master."></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 656px; height: 436px;" + alt="" src="images/007.JPG"><br> +Results of Prevarication. Peter denying his Master.<br> +<br> +<br> +But his deception involved him in the very difficulty he designed to<br> +escape. The king's courtiers saw the handsome Hebrew, and extolled her<br> +beauty before him. He summoned her to the apartments of the palace, and<br> +captivated by her loveliness, determined to make her his bride. During<br> +the agonizing suspense of Abram, and the concealed anguish of Sarai in<br> +her conscious degradation, the hours wore heavily away, until the<br> +judgment of God upon the royal household brought deliverance. Pharaoh,<br> +though an idolater, knew by this supernatural infliction, that there was<br> +guilt in the transaction, and called Abram to an account. He had nothing<br> +to say in self-acquittal, and with a strange magnanimity, was sent away<br> +quietly, with his wife and property, followed only by the reproaches of<br> +Pharaoh, and his own wakeful conscience.<br> +<br> +Abram returned to Palestine, became a victor in fierce battles with a<br> +vastly outnumbering foe, and was in possession of a splendid fortune.<br> +<br> +Whether in Egypt, or in his tent on the plains of Palestine, Abram, with<br> +all the patriarchs, was a true gentleman. We may doubt whether any<br> +modern school of refinement in manners could furnish any nobler examples<br> +of dignity and civility in personal learning and manners, than were the<br> +rich dwellers in ancient Palestine. Subjects fell prostrate before<br> +sovereigns; equals, when they met, inclined the head toward the breast,<br> +and placed the right hand on the left breast. Of the Great King it is<br> +written, "Come, let us bow down; let us worship before the Lord our<br> +Maker."<br> +<br> +Jehovah appeared to Abram in a glorious vision, talking with him as<br> +friend to friend. He fell on his face in the dust, as did the exile of<br> +Patmos ages after, while a voice of affection and hope carne from the<br> +bending sky: "I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou<br> +perfect." The solemn covenant involving the greatness and splendor of<br> +the people and commonwealth that should spring from the solitary pair,<br> +was renewed; and as an outward seal, he was named Abraham, The father of<br> +a great multitude--and his wife Sarah, The princess. Still he laughed at<br> +the absurdity that Sarah would ever be a mother, and invoked a blessing<br> +on Ishmael, but evidently said nothing to her upon a subject dismissed<br> +as incredible from his thoughts. For when the celestial messengers were<br> +in the tent, on their way to warn Lot, she listened to their earnest<br> +conversation, concealed by the curtains, and hearing that repeated<br> +promise based on the immutability of God, also laughed with bitter mirth<br> +at her hopeless prospect in regard to the marvelous prediction. And when<br> +one of the Angels, who was Jehovah veiled in human form, as afterward<br> +"manifest in the flesh," charged her with this unbelief and levity, the<br> +discovery roused her fears, and approaching him, without hesitation, she<br> +denied the fact. He knew perfectly her sudden apprehension, and only<br> +repeated the accusation, enforced by a glance of omniscience, like that<br> +which pierced the heart of Peter.<br> +<br> +The group separated, and two of those bright beings went to Sodom. The<br> +next morning Abraham walked out upon the plain, and looked toward the<br> +home of Lot. He saw the smoke as of a great furnace going up to the calm<br> +azure, from the scathed and blackened plains, where life was so busy and<br> +joyous a few hours before! With a heavy heart he returned to his tent,<br> +arid brought Sarah forth to behold the scene. She clung with trembling<br> +to his side, while she listened to the narration of the terrible<br> +overthrow of those gorgeous cities, and the rescue of her brother's<br> +household, and beheld in the distance the seething and silent grave of<br> +millions, sending up a swaying column of ebon cloud, like incense, to<br> +God's burning indignation against sin.<br> +<br> +They left the vale of Mamre, and journeyed to Gera, where, with a<br> +marvellous forgetfulness of the past, the beauty of Sarah again led them<br> +into deception and falsehood, and with the same result as before.<br> +Abimelech, the king, would have taken her for his wife as Abraham's<br> +sister, had not God appeared in a dream, threatening immediate death.<br> +Upon pleading his innocence, he was spared, and expostulating with his<br> +guest, generously offered him a choice of residence in the land; but<br> +rebuked Sarah with merited severity.<br> +<br> +Prophecy and covenant now hastened to their fulfillment. Sarah gave<br> +birth to a son, and with the name of God upon her lips, she gave<br> +utterance to holy rapture. With all her faults, she was a pious and<br> +noble woman. She meant to train him for the Lord, and therefore when she<br> +saw young Ishmael mocking at the festival of his weaning, she besought<br> +her husband to send away the irreverent son, whose influence might ruin<br> +the consecrated Isaac. <a href="#Hagar_in_the_Wilderness">Hagar</a>, +with a generous provision for her wants,<br> +was a fugitive; and the Most High approved the solicitude of a mother<br> +for an only child, around whose destiny was gathered the interest of<br> +ages, and the hopes of a world.<br> +<br> +And now, with the solemn shadows of life's evening hours falling around<br> +her, and a heart subdued by the discipline of Providence, in the fulness<br> +of love which had been rising so long within the barriers of hope<br> +deferred, she bent prayerfully over the very slumbers of that fair boy,<br> +and taught him the precious name of God with the first prattle of his<br> +infant lips. How proudly she watched the unfolding of this bud of<br> +promise! When, in the pastimes of childhood, he played before the tent<br> +door, or, with a shout of gladness, ran to meet Abraham returning from<br> +the folds, her calm and glowing eye marked his footsteps, and her<br> +grateful aspirations for a blessing on the lad, went up to the Heaven of<br> +heavens. At length he stood before her in the manliness and beauty of<br> +youth, unscarred by the rage of passions, and with a brow open and<br> +laughing as the radiant sky of his own lovely Palestine.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Hagar_in_the_Wilderness"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 700px; height: 530px;" + alt="" src="images/013.JPG"><br> + Hagar in the Wilderness.<br> +<br> +<br> +It was a morning which flooded the dewy plains with glory, and filled<br> +the groves with music, when Abraham came in from his wonted communion<br> +with God, and called for Isaac, and told him to prepare for a three<br> +days' journey in the wilderness. How tenderly was Sarah regarded in this<br> +scene of trial! Evidently no information of the awful command to<br> +sacrifice the son of her old age was made to her. She might have read<br> +something fearful in the lines of anxious thought and the workings of<br> +deep emotion in the face of Abraham. But he evaded all inquiries on the<br> +subject, "clave the wood," and accompanied by two of his young men,<br> +turned from his dwelling with a blessing from that wondering mother, and<br> +was soon lost from her straining vision among the distant hills. Upon<br> +the third day he saw the top of Mount Moriah kindling in the rising sun,<br> +and taking Isaac alone, ascended to the summit, whereon was to be reared<br> +an altar, which awakened more intense solicitude in heaven, than any<br> +offering before or since, except on Calvary, where God's "only be-gotten<br> +and well-beloved Son" was slain. There is no higher moral sublimity than<br> +the unwavering trust and cheerful obedience of this patriarch, when the<br> +very oath of the Almighty seemed perjured, and the bow of promise<br> +blotted from the firmament of faith!<br> +<br> +But he believed Jehovah, and would have clung to his assurance, though<br> +the earth had reeled in her orbit, and every star drifted from its<br> +moorings. He prayed for strength, with his hand on the forehead of his<br> +submissive son.<br> +<br> + "He rose up, and laid<br> + The wood upon the altar. All was done,<br> + He stood a moment--and a deep, quick flush<br> + Passed o'er his countenance; and then he nerved<br> + His spirit with a bitter strength, and spoke--<br> + 'Isaac! my only son'--the boy looked up,<br> + And Abraham turned his face away, and wept.<br> + 'Where is the lamb, my father?' O, the tones,<br> + The sweet, the thrilling music of a child!<br> + How it doth agonize at such an hour!<br> + It was the last, deep struggle--Abraham held<br> + His loved, his beautiful, his only son,<br> + And lifted up his arm, and called on God<br> + And lo! God's angel staid him--and he fell<br> + Upon his face and wept."<br> +<br> +The years fled, the good old Abraham died, and Isaac succeeded him to<br> +the patriarchal honors. He had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The elder<br> +brother was irreligious, and married a heathen wife. God had rejected<br> +him, and promised to Jacob the birthright; in other words, he was to be<br> +the chief patriarch, through whose descendants the Messiah should come.<br> +He was his mother's favorite boy, while Isaac clung to Esau.<br> +<br> +When the fond father became weak and blind from age, feeling that death<br> +was near, one day he called Esau, and told him as he might die suddenly,<br> +to get him venison, and prepare for the solemn occasion of receiving his<br> +parting blessing, which should secure the privileges and pre-eminence of<br> +the first-born. The hunter went into the fields, and Rebekah recollected<br> +that Jacob had purchased the birthright of his brother for a mess of<br> +pottage one day when he came in from the chase faint with hunger and<br> +exhaustion. She determined by a stroke of management to secure the<br> +patriarchal benediction. She sent him to the flocks after two kids,<br> +which were prepared with the savory delicacy his father loved, dressed<br> +him up in Esau's apparel, covering his hands and neck to imitate the<br> +hairiness of the rightful heir, and sent him to the beside of the dying<br> +Isaac. When the patriarch inquired who he was, he replied, "I am Esau,<br> +thy first-born." This was beyond belief, because even the skillful<br> +hunter could scarcely, without a miracle, so soon bring in the game, and<br> +dress it for his table. Jacob was called to his side, and he felt of his<br> +hands; the disguise completed the delusion, although his voice had the<br> +milder tone of the young shepherd to that father's ear. He repeated the<br> +interrogation concerning his name, then embracing him, pronounced in a<br> +strain of true poetry, the perpetual blessing of Jehovah's favor upon<br> +his undertakings, and his posterity. The stratagem had succeeded, and<br> +Jacob hastened to inform his mother of the victory, just as Esau<br> +entered. When Isaac discovered the mistake, he trembled with excitement,<br> +while his son cried in anguish, "Bless even me also, O my father!" That<br> +cry pierced the breaking heart of the aged man, but it was a fruitless<br> +lament, He was inflexible, and Esau wept aloud over his blasted hopes;<br> +plotting at the same time, in his awakened enmity, the murder of Jacob.<br> +<br> +This scene of deception, disappointment, and providential working, the<br> +introductory <a href="#Isaac_and_Esau">picture</a> brings vividly +before us.<br> +<br> +The patriarchs were generally shepherds, and when we read in the Bible<br> +of shepherds, we have but a poor impression of their business, if we<br> +think only of the keeping of the small flocks kept in the fenced fields<br> +and yards of modern farmers. They made their wealth chiefly by feeding<br> +immense flocks and herds. They had extensive open plains; and were<br> +obliged to watch the animals to prevent their being lost, stolen by<br> +robbers, or devoured by ferocious beasts. When it was at all safe, the<br> +shepherds and their flocks slept in the fields, beneath the open sky, or<br> +under the sheltering trees.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Welcome_to_a_Wayward_Son"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 658px; height: 508px;" + alt="" src="images/019.JPG"><br> +The Welcome to a Wayward Son.<br> +<br> +<br> +If the country was infested by dangerous men or animals, the owners of<br> +the flocks built the fold or sheep-cote. This enclosure was sometimes<br> +merely a rude pen. The walls were of wood or stone, with a thatched<br> +roof--if they had any at all. The shepherd follows a wayward sheep, and<br> +brings him back to a place of safety.<br> +<br> +Thus the Good Shepherd of souls, whose disciples, like the flocks of the<br> +East, "know his voice," with his rod of affliction restrains the<br> +wandering and keeps securely the trusting ones.<br> +<br> +Occasionally a rich land owner would make an expensive fold--a kind of<br> +town or fortress for his flocks. Keeping the sheep in the air, it was<br> +believed improved the texture of the wool, making it softer and firmer<br> +than when exposed to the sweating and vapors which would necessarily<br> +result from crowding them often and long into enclosures.<br> +<br> +Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were among the richest shepherds of<br> +antiquity, and stand alone in moral grandeur of character, so far as we<br> +have any records of the Hebrew husbandmen.<br> +<br> +The great enemy of the sheep the world over, is the wolf--a cunning,<br> +savage, and daring creature. A lamb of the flock seems to be a dainty<br> +feast for him. He relishes even a child; the human delicacy is quite as<br> +delicious as the other. A mother, with three children, was once riding<br> +in a sledge in a desolate region, when a pack of wolves came running<br> +after her. She drove rapidly on, but they came nearer and nearer, until<br> +their hot breath fell on her face. In her terror, she threw one of the<br> +children to the hungry wolves, hoping thus to pacify or check them until<br> +she could get out of their reach. Soon, however, they came galloping on,<br> +surrounding her sledge, and she flung another upon the snow. A brief<br> +delay, and they were once more around her, and the last child was given<br> +to the beasts; and then she reached her home in safety.<br> +<br> +When she told the story to her neighbors, an exasperated peasant hewed<br> +her down with an axe, because she fed the wolves on her own offspring,<br> +selfishly saving by the sacrifice, her own life.<br> +<br> +How like the destroyers of human virtue, and the great destroyer<br> +himself! Wolves in sheep's clothing, stealing upon unguarded victims,<br> +and glorying in the destruction of all that is "lovely and of good<br> +report." for the transitory present and endless future!<br> +<br> +We now turn to the annals of a patriarchal life which is entirely new,<br> +and intensely interesting--the only record of the kind in the Bible.<br> +<br> +The inspired history introduces him in the following words: "There was a<br> +man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job." This region was in Eastern<br> +Arabia, and probably near the home of Abram when he was summoned by God<br> +to leave his idolatrous friends and neighbors in "Ur of the Chaldees."<br> +<br> +It is thought he lived not far from the time of the great founder of the<br> +Hebrew patriarchy. Job was probably a descendant of Nahor, Abram's<br> +brother. He was a devout, rich, and benevolent Gentile patriarch. The<br> +princely fortune of this "greatest of all the men of the East," is<br> +indicated by an inventory of his flocks and herds. He had "seven<br> +thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of<br> +oxen, and five hundred she asses." His household was also "very great."<br> +This mighty man was a humble servant of God; and Satan could not bear to<br> +see his influence and prosperity; and he determined to make him the<br> +shining mark of his enmity to God and man.<br> +<br> +The mysterious account of his entrance upon the cruel work of attempted<br> +ruin, is in the following words: "Now there was a day when the sons of<br> +God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also<br> +among them." The saints of that early age were called "Sons of God," but<br> +the meaning seems to be that either Satan was permitted to appear in a<br> +gathering of angels who, returning from their ministries of love, were<br> +reporting to their king, and awaiting new instructions, or, it is<br> +designed only to represent the real character and power of the tempter,<br> +in contrast with the loyalty of God's servant.<br> +<br> +The whole narrative bears the marks of a real history; and Jehovah is<br> +not limited by our ideas of what he can consistently do. "My ways are<br> +not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts, saith the Lord."<br> +<br> +The devil charged Job with selfish motives in serving God. He could<br> +afford to be religious with such rare and splendid prosperity. To show<br> +to the universe Satan's lying malice, his loyal subject's holy<br> +character, and to comfort his people in all the ages following, while<br> +the discipline purified and beautified the sufferer, he told the<br> +adversary to try the patriarch with a change of circumstances--the<br> +severest trials; only his body must not be touched.<br> +<br> +The gratified fiend hastened away to his attack upon the unsuspecting<br> +friend of God, over whom he anticipated a great victory. The patriarch's<br> +family was large, and evidently a united and happy one. They had their<br> +anniversary festivals, which were hallowed by religious services; the<br> +faithful and affectionate father offering sacrifices on such occasions.<br> +The Lord was recognized amid the most joyful scenes of social life; and<br> +not, as in many prosperous households of Christian name in all the ages<br> +since, excluded from the circle of pleasure like an unwelcome, unworthy<br> +guest.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Cruel_Husbandman"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 681px; height: 511px;" + alt="" src="images/025.JPG"><br> +The Cruel Husbandman.<br> +<br> +<br> +The birthday seems to have been the favorite anniversary; and at the<br> +very moment Satan left Jehovah, the children were assembled at the house<br> +of the oldest brother. Job was not there. He may have gone away for<br> +awhile, or not yet have joined the rejoicing company.<br> +<br> +For a messenger rushed into his presence with the startling intelligence<br> +that the lawless Sabeans living in the region, had fallen upon the<br> +servants keeping the oxen and asses, and slaying them, had taken the<br> +animals away. No sooner had the devil obtained permission to engage, in<br> +the wicked enterprise, than he found ready agents among men. And before<br> +the evil report was finished, another terrified, excited servant, came<br> +in, saying that the lightning of heaven had consumed the seven thousand<br> +sheep.<br> +<br> +This intelligence was falling from the lips of the only shepherd who<br> +escaped the devouring fire, when a third messenger entered, pale with<br> +alarm, and announced the raid of three companies of Chaldeans upon the<br> +keepers of the three thousand camels, killing all but the bearer of the<br> +news, and driving off the beasts of burden. The trembling man was<br> +interrupted by the sudden appearance of the fourth servant, wild with<br> +terror, crowning the crushing tidings already received, by telling Job<br> +that a gale from the wilderness had swept down upon the eldest son's<br> +dwelling, where the whole family were, excepting the patriarch, and<br> +thrown walls and roof into a common wreck, burying his ten children<br> +under the fragments.<br> +<br> +We cannot easily imagine the stunning effect of these reports, following<br> +each other like successive claps of thunder from a cloudless sky. Satan<br> +was watching the effect, ready to exult over the first expression of<br> +repining and rebellion. But how sublime the resignation of the loyal<br> +heart of the childless, homeless, and penniless sufferer! After the<br> +eastern custom in time of affliction, he cut off his hair, rent his<br> +robe, fell upon the ground, and worshipped. The lips, tremulous with<br> +sorrow, uttered the often-quoted and beautiful words: "The Lord gave,<br> +and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." No<br> +disloyal act, or foolish complaint against Jehovah, gratified the<br> +expectant enemy of God and man. But Satan was not satisfied with the<br> +trial of faith. He was allowed to appear before God, and in answer to<br> +the questioning respecting the patriarch's lofty yet meek submission,<br> +basely and meanly declared that if he had been permitted to torture the<br> +body, he should have succeeded in proving Job to be a hypocrite. The<br> +Lord had purposed to silence the devil, and thoroughly try and sanctify<br> +his own child. So he told the tempter to do what he pleased, only he<br> +must spare life.<br> +<br> +Suddenly poor Job was covered with burning ulcers, which defiled his<br> +form until he scraped it with a piece of broken pitcher. While sitting<br> +in the dust, a wretched mass of corruption, he found a new tempter in<br> +the person of his wife: She asked him if he could still "retain his<br> +integrity," and urged him to "curse God and die." Beautifully again his<br> +breaking heart uttered its loyalty. Charging her with folly, he<br> +inquired: "What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we<br> +not receive evil?"<br> +<br> +The scene of sorrow is now changed. Job had three friends living in the<br> +country not far off, who were clearly intelligent, noble men. They heard<br> +of his calamities, and started on a visit of condolence. When they came<br> +in sight of him, he was so changed that at first they did not know him.<br> +<a href="#Job_and_His_Three_Friends.">They wept aloud, rent their +robes, and scattered dust on their heads, to<br> +express their overwhelming grief.</a> There he sat, in miserable +poverty and<br> +disease, and all around him the ruins of his just before magnificent<br> +fortune, and the bodies or graves of his sons and daughters. They<br> +approached him, and could say nothing, but sat down with him seven days<br> +and nights without speaking a word--an awful, expressive silence. At<br> +length Job could refrain no longer, but in his despondency, began to<br> +bewail his birth, and wish he had at least died in earliest infancy.<br> +Then was opened a long, eloquent, and wonderful discussion by the<br> +mourning company upon the providence and grace of God.<br> +<br> +Jehovah at length spake from the rolling cloud, borne on the "wings of<br> +the wind," and indicated his dealings with a fallen race, pointing the<br> +debaters for illustrations of power, wisdom, and glory, to his works of<br> +creation, from the "crooked serpent" to "Orion and the Pleiades,"<br> +floating in the nightly sky--the wonders of ocean, earth, and air.<br> +<br> +Among the animals to which reference is made, there are three<br> +conspicuous ones, about which naturalists disagree--they cannot<br> +certainly tell us what they were. These are the unicorn, supposed by<br> +many to be the rhinoceros of the present day; the behemoth, thought to<br> +be the hippopotamus or river-horse; and the leviathan, which answers<br> +very well to the whale.<br> +<br> +The description of the war horse is the finest ever written, and given<br> +in a few words; and yet he had not been seen amid the wildest storm of<br> +battle, bearing his rider to the flaming mouths of ordnance, and through<br> +the leaden hail of numberless infantry arms. "Hast thou given the horse<br> +strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him<br> +afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He<br> +paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength, he goeth on to meet<br> +the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither<br> +turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the<br> +glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with<br> +fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the<br> +trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle<br> +afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting."<br> +<br> +He alludes to a very beautiful wonder of his forming skill--"the<br> +treasures of the snow." Few persons imagine the marvels of the fleecy<br> +storm that whiten the earth in winter. What a variety of perfect<br> +crystals! and how delicate their form and finish! The ice is made of<br> +crystals, and often gives out aeolion music at the touch of winter. Even<br> +the frost makes fine drawings on the window panes of leaves and flowers.<br> +<br> +But the people of Palestine and the regions around it, know little of<br> +our northern winters. The cold season is brief, and the occasional snow<br> +storms light, and of short duration.<br> +<br> +After God had finished his sublime appeal, Job bowed his head low before<br> +him, and declared that all he had known of him before, compared with<br> +what he had learned since he was afflicted, was no more than hearing<br> +about him; "for," he added, "now mine eye seeeth thee; wherefore I abhor<br> +myself, and repent in dust and ashes."<br> +<br> +Then the Lord rebuked Job's friends, because they had judged him<br> +harshly, and "had multiplied words without knowledge," directing them to<br> +offer a sacrifice for him.<br> +<br> +The patriarch prospered again under Jehovah's smile, and became greater<br> +in wealth, and family, and influence, than he was when Satan assailed<br> +him. The deceiver and persecutor does not appear again in the annals of<br> +the devout Arabian; disappointed and enraged, he turned his malice<br> +against others more easily conquered and led captive by his wiles.<br> +<br> +How awakening the thought that he still goes about "as a roaring lion,<br> +seeking whom he may devour." But with loving trust in God, he can only<br> +repeat his fruitless effort to destroy, preparing the way for richest<br> +blessings.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Nathan_Reproving_David"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 568px; height: 716px;" + alt="" src="images/32PicA.jpg"><br> + Nathan Reproving David.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Davids_Charge_to_Solomon"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 571px; height: 716px;" + alt="" src="images/32PicB.jpg"><br> + David's Charge to Solomon.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND.<br> +<br> +PATRIARCHS. KINGS. AND KINGDOMS.<br> +<br> +THE FIRST KINGS.<br> +<br> +Theocracy, we have seen, was the first form of government in the world.<br> +<br> +The word is from Theos, which means God; for He ruled by direct command,<br> +and would have continued to have been the only and perfect sovereign,<br> +had not man been disloyal to him.<br> +<br> +The patriarchal quay, which was that of the family, having at length<br> +united households and extended authority, was still a Theocracy.<br> +<br> +When God made his people a separate nation, each of the twelve tribes,<br> +which sprang from the sons of Jacob, had its own ruler. If any important<br> +matter concerning them all demanded public attention, they called an<br> +assembly of their leaders.<br> +<br> +When the bondage in Egypt was broken, Moses was the deliverer and<br> +lawgiver of Israel, and Joshua the great general or military chieftain.<br> +<br> +The high priest was the visible servant of God--his representative of<br> +the Redeemer of his people.<br> +<br> +Then came the judges, who were a kind of governors, having power to<br> +declare war and make peace for the nation, but wearing no badges of<br> +distinction. Jehovah revealed through them his will, and was still the<br> +glorious king of Israel.<br> +<br> +With the increase in numbers and general prosperity, there was a<br> +decrease of the religious element and of harmony among the people. They<br> +also ceased to appreciate the simple and sublime principles of a<br> +Theocracy, while all around them was the central power and the pomp of<br> +pagan monarchies; and they became tired of God's holy sovereignty,<br> +having no visible display of authority. There were dissensions and civil<br> +strife in Israel, in consequence of these departures from the Lord, and<br> +strange melancholy blindness to their preeminence over other nations.<br> +<br> +It was with them as it will be in the great American Republic, if<br> +Puritan faith and works decline, until practical atheism prevails in our<br> +"goodly land." The people will throw off wholesome restraints, become<br> +divided North and South, and corrupt in morals, until a monarchy will be<br> +the natural resort of the people, as a protection against their own<br> +selfish passions and conflicts.<br> +<br> +Samuel, the wonderful child of Elkanah and Hannah, given to them, like<br> +Jephthah and Samson, as a special mark of divine favor, and who early<br> +entered the temple-service under Eli, was the last of the judges,<br> +excepting the authority which he delegated to his sons. He was a noble,<br> +dutiful and devout boy, and a faithful priest and magistrate in Israel.<br> +Eli, whose sons were dissipated, and slain by God's revealed purpose on<br> +account of their enemies, preceded him, so that Samuel saw the last of<br> +the Theocracy, and inaugurated by the Lord's command a monarchy in<br> +Palestine.<br> +<br> +The Hebrews came to him begging for a king, and urging, as one reason<br> +for the change, the unfitness of his sons to succeed him. They were<br> +mercenary and open to bribery, and it is not strange that they were<br> +disliked by the people. It is one of many instances of departure by<br> +children from the counsels and prayers of the kindest parents, and<br> +choosing the "wages of sin."<br> +<br> +Samuel took the petition of the people to God for direction in answering<br> +it. The Lord's message was the following:<br> +<br> +"Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee: for<br> +they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should<br> +not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done,<br> +since the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, even to this<br> +day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they<br> +also to thee. Now, therefore, hearken to their voice: nevertheless<br> +testify solemnly to them, and show them the practice of the king that<br> +shall reign over them."<br> +<br> +He then enumerated the burdens of the state which they must bear. The<br> +inventory of these royal exactions is so true to the experience of all<br> +countries under kingly rule, you will read it with interest. It was the<br> +first divine statement of the nature of a monarchy, and has needed no<br> +important change in the progress of the ages. Jehovah told Samuel to<br> +repeat the following description of the desired blessing, a king:<br> +<br> +"He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots,<br> +and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he<br> +will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and<br> +will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make<br> +his instruments of war and instruments of chariots. And he will take<br> +your daughters to be confectioners, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.<br> +And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards,<br> +even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take<br> +the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his<br> +officers, and to his servants; and he will take your men-servants, and<br> +your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and<br> +put them to his works. And he will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye<br> +shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day, beware of your<br> +king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in<br> +that day."<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Saul_and_the_Witch_of_Endor"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 539px; height: 666px;" + alt="" src="images/037Pic.jpg"><br> + Saul and the Witch of Endor.<br> +<br> +<br> +God had selected the first monarch of earth outside of heathenism. In<br> +the comparatively small tribe of Benjamin, was a man of honorable<br> +ancestry named Kish. His son, Saul, was a splendid young man, and would<br> +have attracted admiring attention anywhere, and in any land under the<br> +sun, then or since his day. He was taller from his shoulders than all<br> +the rest of Israel's men, and possessed of the highest style of manly<br> +beauty. Repeated mention is made of his noble figure and bearing. The<br> +providential circumstances which attended his promotion were remarkable.<br> +<br> +<br> +He had wandered about for three days seeking the strayed asses of his<br> +father. Fatigued with the unsuccessful search, he was inclined to<br> +abandon it and return home, when, finding himself near Ramah, where<br> +Samuel lived, he resolved to consult one who was renowned in all Israel<br> +as a man from whom nothing was hid. Instructed in the divine designs<br> +regarding Saul, the prophet received him with honor. He assured him that<br> +the asses which he had sought were already found, and invited him to<br> +stay with him until the next morning. Saul was in fact the man on whom<br> +the divine appointment to be the first king of Israel had fallen. A hint<br> +of this high destiny produced from the astonished stranger a modest<br> +declaration of his insufficiency. But the prophet gave him the place of<br> +honor before all the persons whom--foreknowing the time of his arrival--<br> +he had invited to his table. As is still usual in summer, Saul slept on<br> +the flat roof of the house; and was called early in the morning by<br> +Samuel, who walked forth some way with him on his return home. When they<br> +had got beyond the town they stopped, and Samuel then anointed Saul as<br> +the person whom God had chosen to be "captain over his inheritance;" and<br> +gave him the first kiss of civil homage. In token of the reality of<br> +these things, and to assure the mind of the bewildered young man, the<br> +prophet foretold the incidents of his homeward journey, and, in parting,<br> +desired his attendance on the seventh day following at Gilgal.<br> +<br> +On the day and at the place appointed, Samuel assembled a general<br> +convocation of the tribes for the election of a king. As usual, under<br> +the Theocracy, the choice of God was manifested by the sacred lot. The<br> +tribe of Benjamin was chosen; and of the families of Benjamin, that of<br> +Matri was taken; and, finally, the lot fell upon the person of Saul, the<br> +son of Kish. Anticipating this result, he had modestly concealed himself<br> +to avoid an honor which he so little desired. But he was found and<br> +brought before the people, who beheld with enthusiasm his finely<br> +developed form and preeminence in appearance, and hailed him as their<br> +king.<br> +<br> +Many prominent persons of the great tribes were jealous and indignant,<br> +because the smallest tribe, and a young man whose chief claim to the<br> +honor was his fine figure, had been chosen. They refused to join the<br> +masses in their homage, and Saul displayed his shrewdness in "holding<br> +his peace."<br> +<br> +And the wisdom of God was apparent in the result; for he gradually<br> +united the discordant elements around him, and became established in<br> +power. Soon after came the trial of his ability as a general.<br> +<br> +The Ammonites, a mighty and warlike people under king Nahash, besieged<br> +the important town of Jabesh-Gilead. The beleaguered place was at length<br> +compelled to ask terms of capitulation. The proud and cruel reply was,<br> +that every man should have his right eye put out.<br> +<br> +The Jabesh-Gileadites agreed to the hard conditions, unless help reached<br> +them within seven days. Messengers hastened to Saul, in Gibeah, and<br> +found him returning from his herds in the field. The story of the<br> +invasion and peril roused all the energies and martial spirit of a king<br> +worthy of his crown. It was the Lord's inspiration for his high +office,<br> +and immediate command of the army.<br> +<br> +The inhabitants were timid; and to awaken their courage he slew oxen,<br> +had them quartered, and sent the pieces over the kingdom, assuring those<br> +who were able to fight, that unless they hastened to the rescue all<br> +their cattle should have a similar slaughter. The volunteers came<br> +pouring in, and Saul marched to Jabesh-Gilead. A battle followed, and<br> +the Ammonites were routed with terrible slaughter. It was a grand<br> +victory, and won for Saul the glory of military genius. This settled the<br> +question of his right to reign, and his sceptre was held over an<br> +undivided people.<br> +<br> +Retaining three thousand men, he followed up the conquest by an attack<br> +upon the Philistines, who had conquered on the south, and deprived<br> +Israel of weapons of war, and implements of husbandry. Only Saul and<br> +Jonathan had either sword or spear. The latter, a gifted and noble young<br> +man, distinguished himself, under God's special benediction, in a<br> +successful assault upon a garrison of the Philistines. The enemy rallied<br> +in full strength, and Saul prepared to meet them with additional forces.<br> +<br> +Samuel had appointed sacrifices to be made before the campaign was<br> +opened, and because he did not appear in Gilgal when Saul expected him,<br> +the king turned priest, and presented the offerings. This rashness<br> +revealed his undevout character and haughty self-will, which proved his<br> +ruin.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Saul_Rejected"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 671px; height: 485px;" + alt="" src="images/043Pic.jpg"><br> + Saul Rejected.<br> +<br> +<br> +Meanwhile the most of his troops had scattered, through fear of the<br> +powerful foe. But Jonathan determined to make a bold onset, and, with<br> +his armor-bearer, climbed a high cliff, and fell upon the Philistines.<br> +They supposed the Hebrews were rushing from ambush upon them, and began<br> +to fly. Saul entered the field and aided in the overthrow of the<br> +defeated warriors, slaying and treading each other down in the wild<br> +confusion of the retreat.<br> +<br> +During the last years of Saul's reign, conscious that God had forsaken<br> +him, in one of his campaigns against the Philistines he sought the<br> +counsel of a witch. When he beheld the vast force which the Philistine<br> +states had, by a mighty effort, brought into the field, dire misgivings<br> +as to the result arose in his mind; and now, at last, in this extremity,<br> +he sought counsel of God. But the Lord answered him not by any of the<br> +usual means--by dreams, by Urim, or by prophets. Finding himself thus<br> +forsaken, he had recourse to a <a href="#Saul_and_the_Witch_of_Endor">witch +at Endor</a>, not far from Gilboa, to<br> +whom he repaired by night in disguise, and conjured her to evoke the<br> +spirit of Samuel, that he might ask counsel of him in this fearful<br> +emergency. Accordingly, an aged and mantled figure arose, which Saul<br> +took to be the ghost of Samuel, though whether it were really so or not<br> +has been much questioned. The king bowed himself reverently, and told<br> +the reason for which he had called him from the dead. The figure, in<br> +reply, told him that God had taken the crown from his house, and given<br> +it to a worthier man; that, on the next day, the Philistines would<br> +triumph over Israel; and that he and his sons should be slain in the<br> +battle. The king swooned at these heavy tidings, but soon recovered,<br> +and, having taken some refreshment, returned the same night to the camp.<br> +<br> +The engraver's art has produced a picture of this strange scene, one<br> +which cannot be clearly and satisfactorily explained.<br> +<br> +Saul received orders, through Samuel, to execute the Lord's "fierce<br> +wrath" upon the Amelekites, who had formerly been doomed to utter<br> +extermination, for opposing the Israelites when they came out of Egypt.<br> +The result of the war put it fully in the king's power to fulfil his<br> +commission; but he retained the best of the cattle as booty, and brought<br> +back the Amalekite king Agag as a prisoner. Here Saul again ventured to<br> +use his own discretion where his commission left him none. For this the<br> +divine decree, excluding his descendants from the throne, was again and<br> +irrevocably pronounced by Samuel, who met him at Gilgal on his return.<br> +The stern prophet then directed the Amalekite king to be brought forth<br> +and slain by the sword, after which he departed to his own home, and<br> +went no more to see Saul to the day of his death, though he ceased not<br> +to bemoan his misconduct, and the forfeiture it had incurred.<br> +<br> +The next engraving is a very good view of this crisis in Saul's<br> +destiny--his rejection by God and his prophet. When Samuel turned to<br> +leave the king, the terrified ruler seized his mantle, and in the<br> +struggle it was torn. The prophet improved the incident by telling him<br> +that thus should his kingdom be rent from him, and given to a neighbor.<br> +<br> +We cannot follow Saul through all the achievements and crimes of his<br> +eventful reign; the abandonment of him by the grieved and indignant<br> +Samuel; his deceptive prosperity; and his conscious desertion by God,<br> +until his fits of depression bordered on madness. He had genius and<br> +heroism, but a bad heart, and the hour of his overthrow drew near.<br> +<br> +The venerable and gifted prophet who anointed the king was commanded by<br> +Jehovah to consecrate the successor to the throne. He was directed to go<br> +to Bethlehem, and there anoint one of the sons of Jesse. He knew that<br> +should Saul be informed of the errand, his days were numbered. The doom<br> +of a traitor would follow the solemn act.<br> +<br> +To protect his servant the Lord told Samuel to offer a sacrifice, and<br> +tell the king he was going to Bethlehem for the purpose.<br> +<br> +When Samuel reached Bethlehem, he laid the offerings upon the altar, and<br> +invited a worthy citizen and his family to the sacrifice. The good man's<br> +name was Jesse, and he had eight sons. Eliab, the eldest, like Saul, was<br> +fine-looking--tall, athletic, and commanding in his personal appearance.<br> +Samuel thought he must be the future king of Israel; but God revealed to<br> +him his mistake. Six brothers followed him in their presentation to the<br> +prophet, and the Lord gave the same intimation of his will he had<br> +respecting Eliab.<br> +<br> +The man of God was perplexed. What could he do, if these were the only<br> +sons of Jesse, as it seemed, for no more came? It occurred to him,<br> +however, that possibly there might be another boy, and he inquired of<br> +Jesse if it were not so.<br> +<br> +The excellent father had sent the youngest son, about fifteen years old,<br> +to keep the sheep, and it did not even enter his mind that this mere<br> +child could have any thing to do with the affairs of the kingdom. He<br> +stated the facts to Samuel, who immediately desired to see the lad. He<br> +was sent for, and soon stood before the prophet. The patriarchal servant<br> +of the Infinite One looked upon the noble boy, with his "ruddy and<br> +beautiful countenance," and saw in him the next monarch of Israel.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Christ_Blessing_Little_Children"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 546px; height: 671px;" + alt="" src="images/049Pic.jpg"><br> + Christ Blessing Little Children.<br> +<br> +<br> +David stood among his brethren, a modest, bewildered shepherd boy,<br> +uninjured by unholy gratification of passion and appetite--a<br> +pure-minded, manly, and devout youth.<br> +<br> +God told Samuel to anoint him, and he poured the consecrating oil upon<br> +the fair brow of the astonished David. Then the Spirit of the Lord came<br> +upon him, and departed from Saul altogether. The juvenile shepherd and<br> +hero, who had slain a lion and a bear, in defence of his sheep, returned<br> +to his flocks, a king in destiny.<br> +<br> +Remorse, the predictions of Samuel against him, and baleful passions,<br> +made Saul so wretchedly melancholy, that some of his attendants<br> +suggested to the monarch that he should try the soothing effect of<br> +music. The proposition was favorably received, and upon the<br> +recommendation of another friend, David, the son of Jesse, of whom Saul<br> +knew nothing before, was sent for to play upon the harp. The young<br> +minstrel won the respect and affection of the royal household, and his<br> +harpings were the principal solace of the infatuated and gloomy king,<br> +who at length made David his armor-bearer.<br> +<br> +You know the warriors of ancient time wore armor made of metal to<br> +protect the body from the spear and sword, the common weapons of the<br> +battle-field; and men were appointed by monarchs to have the care of it.<br> +<br> +Since their last great discomfiture, the Philistines had recruited their<br> +strength, and in the thirtieth year of Saul's reign, and the twentieth<br> +of David's life, they again took the field against the Israelites. It<br> +curiously illustrates the nature of warfare in those times, to find that<br> +the presence, in the army of the Philistines, of one enormous giant,<br> +about nine or ten feet high, filled them with confidence, and struck the<br> +Israelites with dread. Attended by his armor-bearer, and clad in<br> +complete mail, with weapons to match his huge bulk, the giant, whose<br> +name was Goliah, presented himself daily between the two armies, and,<br> +with insulting language, defied the Israelites to produce a champion<br> +who, by single combat, might decide the quarrel between the nations.<br> +This was repeated many days; but no Israelite was found bold enough to<br> +accept the challenge. At length David, who had come to the battle-field<br> +with food for his brethren, no longer able to endure the taunts and<br> +blasphemies of Goliah, offered himself for the combat. The king,<br> +contrasting the size and known prowess of the giant with the youth and<br> +inexperience of Jesse's son, dissuaded him from the enterprise. But as<br> +David expressed his strong confidence that the God of Israel, who had<br> +delivered him from the lion and the bear, when he tended his father's<br> +flock, would also deliver him from the proud Philistine, Saul at length<br> +allowed him to go forth against Goliah. Refusing all armor of proof, and<br> +weapons of common warfare, David advanced to the combat, armed only with<br> +his shepherd's sling, and a few smooth pebbles picked up from the brook<br> +which flowed through the valley. The astonished giant felt insulted at<br> +such an opponent, and poured forth such horrid threats as might have<br> +appalled anyone less strong in faith than the son of Jesse. But as he<br> +strode forward to meet David, the latter slung one of his smooth stones<br> +with so sure an aim and so strong an arm, that it smote his opponent in<br> +the middle of the forehead, and brought him to the ground.<br> +<br> +The praises of the people lavished on David excited Saul's jealousy, and<br> +he sought in various ways to kill David, who seemed to have a charmed<br> +life; for God was with him, and no blow aimed at his life was<br> +successful.<br> +<br> +The king's son, Jonathan, loved David devotedly, and more than once<br> +saved him from the wrath of Saul.<br> +<br> +After hunting the son of Jesse, consulting witches in his desperation,<br> +and fighting the Philistines in bloody conflicts, near Mount Gilboa,<br> +defeated and wounded, he committed suicide by falling on his sword. Thus<br> +ended the career of the first king of the Hebrew nation.<br> +<br> +David, under divine guidance, went to Hebron, and was there publicly<br> +anointed king by the tribe of Judah. But Abner, a splendid general, and<br> +a great friend of Saul, induced the rest of the tribes to acknowledge<br> +Ishbosheth, the only son of Saul then living, as their sovereign. Soon,<br> +however, a quarrel with his protege, led him to join David, who was at<br> +length proclaimed king by all the people.<br> +<br> +After years of prosperity in war and peace, he had a sanguinary battle<br> +with the Ammonites. This occurred in the eighteenth year of his reign.<br> +The conduct of this war David intrusted to Joab, and remained himself at<br> +Jerusalem. There, while sauntering upon the roof of his palace, after<br> +the noonday sleep, which is usual in the East, he perceived a woman<br> +whose great beauty attracted his regard. She proved to be Bathsheba, the<br> +wife of Uriah, an officer of Canaanitish origin, then absent with the<br> +army besieging Rabbah, the capital of Ammon. David was so fascinated<br> +with her that he determined to add her to his royal household. He sent<br> +for Uriah to Jerusalem. Having heard from him the particulars of the<br> +war, which he pretended to require, the king dismissed him to his own<br> +home. But Uriah, feeling that it ill became a soldier to seek his bed<br> +while his companions lay on the hard ground, under the canopy of heaven,<br> +exposed to the attacks of the enemy, remained all night in the hall of<br> +the palace with the guards, and returned to the war without having seen<br> +Bathsheba. David made him the bearer of an order to Joab to expose him<br> +to certain death, in some perilous enterprize against the enemy. He was<br> +obeyed by that unscrupulous general; and when David heard that Uriah was<br> +dead, he sent for Bathsheba, and made her his wife. He had already<br> +several wives, as was customary in those times; and among them was<br> +Michal, whom he had long ago reclaimed from the man to whom she had been<br> +given by the unprincipled Saul.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Woman_of_Canaan"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 650px; height: 501px;" + alt="" src="images/055Pic.jpg"><br> +The Woman of Canaan.<br> +<br> +<br> +David, whose undisputed authority, and admiration of the beautiful<br> +Bathsheba, deceived him, blinding his moral vision, thought all was<br> +safe. Death and royalty seemed to cover forever his sin.<br> +<br> +But never was a man more mistaken. God sent Nathan, a fearless, faithful<br> +prophet, to rebuke him. So the seer went to him, inquiring what should<br> +be done with a man who had robbed a poor neighbor of his only and pet<br> +lamb. The king, who was really loyal to God, and just in his aims,<br> +indignantly said that the robber should die, and the lamb be restored.<br> +Then Nathan fixed his eye on the king, and, pointing to him, exclaimed<br> +courageously, <a href="#Nathan_Reproving_David">"Thou art the man!"</a><br> +<br> +David bowed his head and wept under the pointed reproof, and began to<br> +cry, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, oh, God, thou God of my<br> +salvation."<br> +<br> +What a fine example of faithful preaching, and of an honest hearer! This<br> +illustration of true penitence, which is given in the picture at the<br> +beginning of this history of the kings, suggests a good story of modern<br> +date. Jacob, an intelligent negro, was bribed and intoxicated to make<br> +him commit murder. He was convicted of the crime, and sent to the State<br> +prison for life. He could not read, but a bible was in his cell, and he<br> +learned so rapidly that soon he could pick out the words and get the<br> +meaning. He would run his finger over each letter of the fifty-first<br> +Psalm, especially the fourteenth verse, until he enamelled it with his<br> +touch. The bible is still kept by an excellent man, as a relic of<br> +prison-life. For Jacob was pardoned, went to the lovely town of C-,<br> +N.Y., and became an eminent Christian. His monument is one of the<br> +highest in the cemetery.<br> +<br> +The Scriptures describe David as "a man after God's own heart." By this<br> +we are not to understand that David always acted rightly, or that God<br> +approved of all he did. Its meaning is, that, in his public capacity, as<br> +king of Israel, he acted in accordance with the true theory of the<br> +theocratical government; was always alive to his dependence on the<br> +Supreme King; took his own true place in the system, and aspired to no<br> +other; and conducted all his undertakings with reference to the Supreme<br> +Will. He constantly calls himself "the servant (or vassal) of Jehovah,"<br> +and that, and no other, was the true place for the human king of Israel<br> +to fill. In thus limiting the description of David as "a man after God's<br> +own heart," it is not necessary for us to vindicate all his acts, or to<br> +uphold him as an immaculate character. But the same ardent temperament<br> +which sometimes betrayed his judgment in his public acts, led him into<br> +great errors and crimes. It also made him the first to discover his<br> +lapse, and the last to forgive himself.<br> +<br> +Domestic afflictions humbled David, and persecution by enemies<br> +embittered his life. The kingly crown had its thorns. An only child died<br> +in infancy. Afterwards, his handsome and popular son, Absalom, was<br> +ambitious to get the throne of his father, and became the leader of a<br> +great revolt, in whose conflicts he was slain.<br> +<br> +Solomon, another son, was the heir chosen by the Lord, to the crown of<br> +David. And when the monarch of Israel drew near the close of his stormy,<br> +yet splendid reign, he called the intellectual, comely, and dutiful boy<br> +to his bedside, to give him his last words of counsel and blessing.<br> +<br> +<a href="#Davids_Charge_to_Solomon">This scene is depicted in the +colored engraving.</a> Among the paternal<br> +exhortations to the young prince was the following impressive address:<br> +"And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy fathers, and serve<br> +him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind; for the Lord<br> +searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the<br> +thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee but if thou forsake<br> +him, he will cast thee off forever."<br> +<br> +Solomon, the second king of Israel, desired and sought, before riches<br> +and honors, wisdom from God, to govern well the people, and it was<br> +freely given.<br> +<br> +Under his father's sceptre, Palestine was great in martial achievements,<br> +national wealth, and the fine arts; for the king was a poet and a<br> +musician. Solomon was a man of peace, and during his reign the kingdom<br> +reached its highest glory in oriental splendor and luxury. The temple he<br> +built was a monument of munificence, skill, and royal zeal for God's<br> +honor.<br> +<br> +What a wonderful display of wisdom was that decision in the case of the<br> +two women, one of whom, in her sleep, lying upon her babe, had smothered<br> +it, and claimed the living child of the other, who lodged with her. He<br> +knew when he sent for the executioner, and told him to cut in two parts<br> +the live babe, giving to each a half, that the mother would be seen in<br> +the effect of the command to slay. And so it was. The faithless woman<br> +said let it be so; the loving, yearning mother exclaimed no, rather let<br> +the other have the child. Solomon wisely decided the matter, directing<br> +the attendants to give the unconscious object of controversy to her to<br> +whom it belonged.<br> +<br> +But this rich and popular monarch was led into sin by his unbounded<br> +prosperity, and indulging in forbidden pleasures. Afterwards he bitterly<br> +mourned over his folly and shameful weakness, in departing from the<br> +living God. This varied and, much of it, wasted life, led the king, in<br> +his sober years of declining age, to write the Book of Proverbs and<br> +Ecclesiastes, so full of the profoundest knowledge of mankind and wisest<br> +counsel. It is said that the Scotch are preeminently discerning and<br> +intelligent, because they are so familiar with the Scriptures,<br> +especially the proverbs of Solomon.<br> +<br> +There were no more such monarchs in Israel, after David and Solomon, and<br> +the kingdom became divided and weakened, until the Jews were conquered<br> +and enslaved by their enemies. The expensive magnificence and luxury of<br> +Solomon's reign, and his departures from God into idolatrous worship,<br> +awakened the divine indignation.<br> +<br> +A prophet was commissioned to tell the wise, yet foolish monarch that<br> +the kingdom should be rent in twain, and the grandeur of his empire<br> +depart before the revolt of the ten tribes from Judah, which had<br> +absorbed the small tribe of Benjamin. Solomon was about sixty years old<br> +when he died. He had ruled forty years, and was buried nine hundred and<br> +seventy-five years before the advent of Christ. Rehoboam, the son of<br> +Solomon, was made king over Judah, and Jereboam, an Ephraimite, became<br> +sovereign of the ten tribes, who were called Israel.<br> +<br> +How interesting and instructive the history of the Hebrews, at this<br> +period!<br> +<br> +They got tired of the sovereignty of God, visible only in written rules<br> +of conduct, family government, and the prophet-judges, and desired to<br> +imitate their pagan neighbors in the pomp and power of royalty. Under<br> +their second monarch they quarrelled among themselves, engaged in civil<br> +strife, and became divided, rival kingdoms. During the five hundred<br> +years which followed, the successive kings of the two realms had, the<br> +most of them, brief sovereignty. Some of them were excellent kings, but<br> +the greater part were wicked and oppressive.<br> +<br> +Pre-eminent in crime was Ahab, whose wife, Jezebel, was a fit companion.<br> +<br> +Their names live in the world's history with a bad preeminence, like<br> +those of Herod, Nero, and similar rulers of ancient and modern times.<br> +<br> +The corpse of a ruler, or of the humblest subject, was ordinarily wound<br> +in grave-clothes, and laid in a sepulchre. This, in the early ages, was<br> +a room hewn out of a rock, a cave, or a grave which had no mound, nor<br> +any other mark, excepting monumental stones, with no inscriptions.<br> +<br> +The Arabian patriarch, Job, talked of kings and counsellors, who built<br> +for themselves "desolate places," which probably has reference to<br> +sepulchral monuments, cut out of the rock.<br> +<br> +The expression "a sepulchre on high," is an allusion to the custom<br> +anciently of placing the dead in tombs made in cliffs, sometimes<br> +hundreds of feet in height--a lofty, inaccessible resting-place for the<br> +body of a distinguished person.<br> +<br> +Some nations of the heathen world have always burned their dead. In<br> +Japan, recently, an American traveller witnessed this singular disposal<br> +of the lifeless remains. A priest was placed in a sitting posture in his<br> +coffin, and a fire built behind it, consuming to ashes the body. These<br> +relics were carefully gathered up, and put in a safe and sacred place<br> +for all coming time.<br> +<br> +It is a remarkable thing that the Bible does not record any solemn<br> +parade or imposing ceremonies over the burial of the Hebrew kings.<br> +<br> +Of David it is written, he "slept with his fathers, and was buried in<br> +the city of David." The same simple and impressive mention is made of<br> +Solomon's death. Monarchs were only men--sinners to be saved by grace,<br> +if rescued at all from the power and ruin of sin. It is hoped and<br> +believed by Christian people that Solomon, in his declining years,<br> +reviewed prayerfully and penitently his career, and found peace with a<br> +pardoning God.<br> +<br> +The sepulchre of royalty in Jerusalem, is well worthy of a visit by<br> +travellers in the Holy Land. Some of the stone coffins lean against the<br> +solid walls, others lie in massive richness of sculpture on the floor.<br> +<br> +The Jews called their burial places the house of the living, because of<br> +the expected resurrection--a beautiful sentiment, which rebukes the<br> +dismal thoughts and mourning of many Christian persons over the newly<br> +made graves of their departed friends.<br> +<br> +The beautiful tomb in the "valley of Jehosaphat," is one of<br> +comparatively modern construction, but it shows the admiration felt by<br> +the Hebrews for Absalom, with all his waywardness.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Joseph_Elevated_to_Power"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 571px; height: 731px;" + alt="" src="images/064PicA.jpg"><br> + Joseph Elevated to Power by Pharaoh.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Israelites_Carried_into_Captivity"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 569px; height: 721px;" + alt="" src="images/064PicB.jpg"><br> +The Israelites Carried into Captivity.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND.<br> +<br> +PATRIARCHS, KINGS AND KINGDOMS.<br> +<br> +PALESTINE UNDER PAGAN KINGS.<br> +<br> +The picture which introduces these pages was drawn from a scene under<br> +the sceptre of the first monarch mentioned in the Bible.<br> +<br> +A comparatively unimportant prince, the "King of Sodom," whose small and<br> +wicked realm Jehovah destroyed by fire and brimstone, is mentioned.<br> +<br> +But the empire of the Pharaohs of Egypt, was large, rich, and<br> +magnificent. And it is a singular thing, that of this nation, and all<br> +others of antiquity, excepting what the Scriptures contain, the early<br> +history is little known. A great German historian, Dr. Von Rotteck,<br> +truly writes: "The principal trait that distinguishes the first period<br> +of the ancient world is its obscurity."<br> +<br> +The general belief is, that the founders of Egypt went from Ethiopia,<br> +and the Ethiopians from East India or South Arabia.<br> +<br> +"Where did the Indiamen have their origin?" you may ask; but no man can<br> +certainly answer. That all races sprang from Adam we have no doubt, but<br> +the lines of descent and emigration the wisest student of the past<br> +cannot follow.<br> +<br> +The living oracles, in brief statements, give us nearly all the reliable<br> +accounts we have of the early history of the "Land of the Nile," as<br> +Egypt was called. In them we learn that while the "chosen people of<br> +God," the only nation whose annals of growth in the number of its<br> +population and its civilization, has been handed down to us, was no more<br> +than a tribe of wandering shepherds under Abraham, Egypt was the home of<br> +art, and a garden of agricultural products.<br> +<br> +And yet the very nomades, who roamed over the uncultivated plains, like<br> +the Aborigines of this new world, have preserved the best records of the<br> +early condition of that ancient and wonderful empire, whose origin is<br> +lost in the distance and darkness of Pagan antiquities.<br> +<br> +It seems, from the tenth chapter of Genesis, that Egypt was settled by<br> +the descendants of Noah, through Ham, his second son.<br> +<br> +The next reference made to this remarkable country is in the twelfth<br> +chapter, where we are told of Abraham's visit there. Again, in the<br> +twenty-first chapter, is recorded the marriage of Ishmael to an Egyptian<br> +woman. In chapter twenty-ninth is related the story of Joseph's<br> +captivity and career in the capital of the Pagan monarchy. He was the<br> +twelfth son of Jacob, and one of Rachel's two boys--lovely in his<br> +youthful character, and the idol of his father. During a period of<br> +repose in sleep he had a singular dream. The first was, that while the<br> +brothers were all in the harvest-field at work his sheaf suddenly rose<br> +upright, and the sheaves of the eleven brethren stood up and bowed to<br> +his own. The intimation that he was to rule over them made them angry,<br> +and they hated him.<br> +<br> +Soon after Joseph's sleep he was disturbed by another dream. The sun,<br> +moon, and eleven stars, rendered homage to him. The interpretation of<br> +this was the same as that of the other, with the addition of his father<br> +and mother, who also bowed before him.<br> +<br> +It may seem strange that Joseph should relate any thing so complimentary<br> +to himself. But he evidently did it in no boasting mood. He simply<br> +narrated the extraordinary dreams, without the least idea of what was<br> +before him.<br> +<br> +But God saw what he did hot know, that their jealousy and enmity would<br> +be overruled for the temporal salvation of the family and nation.<br> +<br> +The venerable, thoughtful father, silently pondered over the singular<br> +experience of Joseph.<br> +<br> +The elder sons were shepherds, and fed their flocks in Shechem. How<br> +beautiful the ingenious, dutiful character of Joseph now appears! His<br> +father called him to go and find his brethren, to see how they were<br> +getting along. "Here am I," was his response. That is to say: "Although<br> +my brethren hate me, I am ready to serve you, and do any thing for<br> +them." He went to Shechem, but they had left; and the boy wandered about<br> +in the field looking for them. A citizen happened to see him, and was<br> +evidently interested in the beautiful stranger, bewildered and alone,<br> +and asked what he wanted. Joseph told him the truth of the case, when<br> +the man said that his brothers had taken their flocks to Dotham, a few<br> +miles distant.<br> +<br> +He started for that place, and while a "great way off," they saw and<br> +knew him. The conspiracy was instantly formed to dispose of the<br> +"dreamer."<br> +<br> +The first proposition was to kill him, but Reuben would not agree to the<br> +cruel suggestion. His plan was to cast the lad into a deep pit, till he<br> +could manage to get him back to his father. This less bloody way of<br> +disposing of Joseph was accepted, and when he came near they took off<br> +the "coat of many colors" the doting father had given him, and putting<br> +him in a pit without water which happened to be at hand, dipping it in<br> +blood to make his father think a beast killed him, they took it home.<br> +Scarcely was the interesting boy weeping in his prison before a caravan<br> +of Ishmaelites, and then of Midianites, came in sight.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Moses_Found_in_the_Bulrushes"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 675px; height: 494px;" + alt="" src="images/069Pic.jpg"><br> + Moses Found in the Bulrushes.<br> +<br> +<br> +A new idea now flashed upon their minds. They could avoid the unpleasant<br> +consciousness of probable murder, and make something out of his sale as<br> +a slave to the wandering traders. A bargain was soon made, and young<br> +Joseph, casting backward a farewell look of sad reproach, was carried<br> +away, and sold by the Midianites to the Ishmaelites, of whom Potiphar,<br> +the captain of Pharaoh's guard, bought him for a servant. God blessed<br> +the youth, and he was soon made overseer of the officer's household. But<br> +Potiphar's wife was a vile woman, and because Joseph was nobly true to<br> +God and virtue, made a false report of him, and had him put in prison.<br> +<br> +Egypt's monarch had wonderful dreams about a famine his astrologers<br> +could not explain; and a released prisoner, who had forgotten Joseph's<br> +kindness in explaining a dream of deliverance, advised the king to send<br> +for the Hebrew. <a href="#Joseph_Elevated_to_Power">The young man was +taken to the palace, and gave a true<br> +interpretation of the dreams.</a> Pharaoh was delighted; and from his<br> +dungeon Joseph went to the secret place of authority second to the king.<br> +Pharaoh said: "Only in the throne will I be greater than thou." He then<br> +put a ring on his finger, a gold chain on his neck, and arrayed him in<br> +fine apparel. The beautiful illustration sets this sudden and splendid<br> +promotion before us--the honor God put upon his youthful servant.<br> +<br> +Soon the predicted famine came, for which the gifted and prudent Joseph<br> +had made complete provision by storing up the abundant harvests. Among<br> +the sufferers from failing crops and pasturage, was the large family of<br> +Jacob--his sons and their households.<br> +<br> +In their extremity they turned to Egypt. Joseph's influence was such<br> +that the patriarch's delegation found favor with the king. The<br> +prime-minister of Egypt knew his brethren, but they had forgotten him.<br> +So he managed to find out all about his father's house, and made his<br> +brothers bring dear Benjamin, when he wept aloud, and made himself known<br> +to them all. Pharaoh sent for the whole race, and soon the Hebrew<br> +caravan reached the fruitful land of Goshen, which was exactly suited to<br> +the life of shepherds. Here the strangers grew in numbers and wealth,<br> +until Joseph died, and the friendly monarch also. His successor cared<br> +neither for Joseph nor his countrymen. He was a tyrant, and enslaved the<br> +dwellers in Goshen. Centuries of captivity wore away, and God determined<br> +to deliver his people, and send them back again to Palestine.<br> +<br> +<a href="#Moses_Found_in_the_Bulrushes">The scene displayed in this +picture you will recognize at a glance.</a><br> +Moses, the Hebrew babe, afloat on the Nile, in a small boat made of<br> +bulrushes by his mother, because Pharaoh was slaying the children of her<br> +nation, to get rid of them.<br> +<br> +Neither the haughty and cruel monarch, nor the mother, nor the little<br> +voyager, thought of Moses as the future deliverer of his countrymen from<br> +bondage--the great leader and lawgiver of Israel.<br> +<br> +We have already had glimpses of the Hebrews in the wilderness, their<br> +progress and rulers in Palestine, after the moving multitude reached the<br> +"promised land."<br> +<br> +The ages of changing sovereigns, and fortunes of crimes and discipline<br> +brought them at last to another mournful captivity.<br> +<br> +About six hundred years before Christ, while that wicked Manassah was<br> +king in Palestine, the monarch of Assyria--a grand and powerful<br> +empire--invaded it, and took Jerusalem. Manassah was carried in chains<br> +to Babylon, the splendid Assyrian capital. His son, Amon, became the<br> +sovereign under the Assyrian conqueror, but was soon assassinated, and<br> +Josiah took the throne.<br> +<br> +During his reign, the King of Egypt marched into Palestine and conquered<br> +it, killing Josiah, the king.<br> +<br> +A few years later, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian monarch, besieged and<br> +took Jerusalem, the "City of David."<br> +<br> +The massive walls of the cities of old was their chief protection. Those<br> +of Babylon, according to the old Roman historians, were marvelously<br> +great. Think of them rising three hundred and fifty feet, eighty-seven<br> +feet in thickness, and extending sixty miles around the city! One writer<br> +says, that two four-horse chariots could pass each other on the top.<br> +They were built of brick, cemented together with bitumen.<br> +<br> +They had twenty gates made of solid brass, and were surmounted with two<br> +hundred and fifty towers.<br> +<br> +The city had six hundred and seventy-six squares, each over two miles in<br> +circumference. The river Euphrates flowed through the entire extent,<br> +from north to south.<br> +<br> +The hanging gardens, suspended from the walls, were gorgeous, and the<br> +public buildings rich and elegant.<br> +<br> +Such was the home of the Hebrew exiles for seventy years or more.<br> +<br> +Quintus Curtius, a Roman, has described the entrance of the great and<br> +victorious Alexander into Babylon, at a later period, who soon after<br> +died there of dissipation, while yet a young man. The pleasant sketch<br> +gives a vivid impression of the glory and pomp of this ancient capital<br> +of Babylon:<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Christ_Declaring_Who_is_Greatest"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 644px; height: 513px;" + alt="" src="images/075Pic.jpg"><br> + Christ Declaring Who is Greatest.<br> +<br> +<br> +"A great part of the inhabitants of Babylon stood on the walls, eager to<br> +catch a sight of their new monarch; many went forth to meet him. Among<br> +these Bagophanes, keeper of the citadel and of the royal treasure,<br> +strewed the entire way before the king with flowers and crowns; silver<br> +altars were also placed on both sides of the road, which were loaded not<br> +merely with frankincense, but all kinds of odoriferous herbs. He brought<br> +with him for Alexander gifts of various kinds, flocks of sheep and<br> +horses; lions, also, and panthers were carried before him in their dens.<br> +The magi came next, singing in their usual manner their ancient hymns.<br> +After them came the Chaldeans with their musical instruments, who are<br> +not only the prophets of the Babylonians, but their artists. The first<br> +are wont to sing the praises of the kings; the Chaldeans teach the<br> +motion of the stars, and the changes of the seasons. Then followed, last<br> +of all, the Babylonian knights, whose equipments, as well as that of<br> +their horses, showed the passion of the people for luxury. The king,<br> +Alexander, attended by armed men, having ordered the crowd of the<br> +townspeople to proceed in the rear of his infantry, entered the city in<br> +a chariot and repaired to the palace. The next day he carefully surveyed<br> +the household treasures of Darius, and all his money. For the rest, the<br> +beauty of the city and its age turned the eyes not only of the king, but<br> +of everyone in itself, and that with good reason."<br> +<br> +The kings and conquerors of old had no canals for boats, no railways,<br> +and not many good roads. Consequently, their invasions and various<br> +public enterprises were carried forward in a slow and toilsome manner.<br> +Heavy wagons and chariots, the latter sometimes armed with scythes or<br> +long blades for battle, were the best vehicles in use.<br> +<br> +There were no monitors, nor fire-arms. Large swords, daggers, slings,<br> +the catapulta and battering-ram, were the principal weapons.<br> +<br> +The last named instrument was a massive machine with a movable beam,<br> +crowned with a very hard end, often shaped like a ram's head, which<br> +could be thrown against a wall with tremendous force, beating it down.<br> +<br> +The catapulta, which was placed upon city walls, was a great cross-bow<br> +for hurling arrows upon an enemy. In it was combined the bow and arrow,<br> +and the sling. The mammoth arrow was put in the groove, the twisted<br> +ropes were connected with levers, and the powerful recoil would send the<br> +strong and sharp arrow a great distance.<br> +<br> +Some of the machines were large enough to discharge beams loaded with<br> +iron; and one kind, called the balista, would send great stones,<br> +crushing through the houses on which they fell.<br> +<br> +Among the spoil, taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, were the costly<br> +vessels of the temple; and he graced his train with members of the royal<br> +family and the principal nobles.<br> +<br> +He placed Zedekiah on the throne of his Hebrew province, who soon after<br> +rebelled against him.<br> +<br> +In consequence of this revolt, the Babylonian king invaded Judea with a<br> +great army, and, after taking most of the principal towns, sat down<br> +before Jerusalem. Early in the next year the Egyptians marched an army<br> +to the relief of their ally, but being intimidated by the alacrity with<br> +which the Babylonians raised the siege and advanced to give them battle,<br> +they returned home without risking an engagement. The return of the<br> +Chaldeans to the siege, destroyed all the hopes which the approach of<br> +the Egyptian succors had excited. The siege was now prosecuted with<br> +redoubled vigor; and at length Jerusalem was taken by storm at midnight,<br> +in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, and in the eighteenth month from the<br> +commencement of the siege. Dreadful was the carnage. The people, young<br> +and old, were slaughtered wherever they appeared; and even the temple<br> +was no refuge for them; the sacred courts streamed with blood. Zedekiah<br> +himself, with his family and some friends, contrived to escape from the<br> +city; but he was overtaken and captured in the plains of Jericho. He was<br> +sent in chains to Nebuchadnezzar, who had left the conclusion of the war<br> +to his generals, and was then at Riblah in Syria. After sternly<br> +reproving him for his ungrateful conduct, the conqueror ordered all the<br> +sons of Zedekiah to be slain before his eyes, and then his own eyes to<br> +be put out, thus making the slaughter of his children the last sight on<br> +which his tortured memory could dwell. He was afterward sent in fetters<br> +of brass to Babylon, where he remained until his death.<br> +<br> +Nebuchadnezzar evidently felt that his purposes had not been fully<br> +executed by the army, or else he was urged by the Edomites and others to<br> +exceed his first intentions. He therefore sent Nebuzaradan, the captain<br> +of the guard, with a sufficient force to complete the desolation of<br> +Judah and Jerusalem. He burned the city and the temple to the ground; he<br> +collected and sent to Babylon all the gold and silver which former<br> +spoilers had left; and he transported all the people who had been left<br> +behind in Jehoiachin's captivity, save only the poor of the land, who<br> +were left to be vine-dressers and husbandmen. Four years after,<br> +Nebuzaradan again entered Judea, and gleaned a few more of the miserable<br> +inhabitants, whom he sent off to Babylon.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Handwriting_on_the_Wall"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 697px; height: 526px;" + alt="" src="images/081Pic.jpg"><br> +The Handwriting on the Wall.<br> +<br> +<br> +Thus was the land left desolate; and thus ended the kingdom of Judah and<br> +the reign of David's house, after it had endured four hundred and four<br> +years under twenty kings. It is remarkable that the King of Babylon made<br> +no attempt to colonize the country he had depopulated, as was done by<br> +the Assyrians in Israel; and thus, in the providence of God, the land<br> +was left vacant, to be re-occupied by the Jews after seventy years of<br> +captivity and punishment.<br> +<br> +<a href="#Israelites_Carried_into_Captivity">The grand and melancholy +march into captivity is seen in the<br> +illustration of the artist.</a><br> +<br> +What a vast and sad procession! The conquerors ride proudly on the high<br> +ground with the captive host in full view. The tower of Babel and the<br> +walls of their magnificent city are visible in the distance.<br> +<br> +The exiles found in Babylon many of their countrymen, who had been<br> +carried there in previous conquests, and were useful, respectable<br> +citizens. Among these, there was a young man of splendid abilities and<br> +noble heart, named Daniel.<br> +<br> +He was one of the youthful sons of high family, who were carried away as<br> +hostages for the fidelity of King Jehoiachin. He and some others were<br> +put under the chief eunuch, to be properly trained in the language and<br> +learning of the Chaldeans, to fit them for employments at the court.<br> +This training lasted three years, when they were examined in the<br> +presence of the king; and Daniel and three of his friends were found to<br> +have made far greater progress than any of those who had been educated<br> +with them. They were therefore enrolled among the magians or learned<br> +men.<br> +<br> +A few years after, Nebuchadnezzar was greatly troubled with a dream,<br> +which made a profound impression upon his mind; but the particulars of<br> +which quite passed from his memory when he awoke. Great importance was<br> +attached to dreams in those days, and men skilled in the sciences were<br> +supposed to be able to discover their meaning. Therefore, the king sent<br> +for his court magians, and required them not only to interpret the<br> +dream, but to discover the dream itself, which he had forgotten. This<br> +they declared to be impossible; on which the exasperated tyrant ordered<br> +all the magians to be massacred. Daniel and his friends, although not<br> +present, were included in such a sentence. On learning this, he begged a<br> +respite for the whole body, undertaking to find, through his God, the<br> +solution of the difficulty. The respite was granted; and at the earnest<br> +prayer of Daniel, God made the secret known to him. A colossal image<br> +which the king saw, with a head of gold, arms and breast of silver,<br> +belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and toes partly iron and partly<br> +clay, was struck down by a stone, which itself grew and filled the whole<br> +earth. This, in the interpretation of Daniel, figured forth "the things<br> +to come;" describing by characteristic symbols the succession of empires<br> +to the end of time; and it is wonderful to observe how precisely the<br> +greater part of what was then future has since been accomplished. The<br> +king was not only satisfied but astonished; he was almost ready to pay<br> +divine honors to Daniel; and raised him at once to the eminent station<br> +of Archimagus, or chief of the magians, and governor of the metropolitan<br> +province of Babylon. His three friends, also, were at his request,<br> +promoted to places of trust and honor.<br> +<br> +Not long after, Nebuchadnezzar set up a colossal image in the plains of<br> +Dura, and commanded that, when music sounded, everyone should worship<br> +it, on pain of death. He soon learned that this command was utterly<br> +neglected by Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego;<br> +and his rage grew so high, at the example of disobedience given by<br> +persons in their high station that he ordered them to be at once cast<br> +into "the burning furnace." The heat of the furnace was so great as to<br> +destroy the men who cast them in; but they themselves remained unhurt,<br> +and not even a hair of their heads was singed. They came forth when the<br> +king called them; and he was so much astonished and convinced by this<br> +prodigy, that he publicly acknowledged the greatness of the God whom<br> +they served.<br> +<br> +There appear to have been good and generous qualities in the character<br> +of Nebuchadnezzar; but the pride with which he contemplated the grandeur<br> +of his empire, and the magnificence of his undertakings, was most<br> +inordinate, and he required to be taught that "the Most High ruleth over<br> +all the kingdoms of the earth, and giveth them to whomsoever he will."<br> +He was warned of this in a dream, which was interpreted to him by<br> +Daniel; but, neglecting the warning, "his heart was changed from man's,<br> +and a beast's heart was given to him." He was afflicted with a madness<br> +which made him think himself a beast, and, acting as such, he remained<br> +constantly abroad in the fields, living upon wild herbs. In this debased<br> +and forlorn condition the mighty conqueror remained seven years, when he<br> +was restored to his reason and his throne, and one of his first acts was<br> +to issue a proclamation, humbly acknowledging the signs and wonders<br> +which the Most High God had wrought toward him, and declaring his<br> +conviction, that "those who walk in pride he is able to abase." He died<br> +soon after.<br> +<br> +The next illustration is drawn from the interpretation of the dream in<br> +the royal palace. Conscious of Jehovah's favor and guidance, how<br> +courageously and grandly he stands before the monarch, and declares the<br> +whole counsel of God!<br> +<br> +He thus became a prophet of the Most High, whose wonderful career<br> +afterwards, we shall again follow, when we come to the narratives of the<br> +seers.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Vision_of_the_Dragon_Chained"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 711px; height: 526px;" + alt="" src="images/087Pic.jpg"><br> +The Vision of the Dragon Chained.<br> +<br> +<br> +The spirit alienation from God, and of depraved desires, which ruled the<br> +ancient pagan realms is set before us under various titles. Among them<br> +is that of the dragon, in the engraving; which the "king of kings" shall<br> +yet bind forever and imprison.<br> +<br> +The fate of the proud kingdoms which ruled Palestine, teaches the world<br> +how little importance God attaches to human glory in his punishment of<br> +the wicked.<br> +<br> +Egypt has scarcely more than its location and name left. Its pyramids,<br> +one of which it is estimated employed three hundred thousand men twenty<br> +years in building, stand in the desert places, solitary and pillaged<br> +sepulchres.<br> +<br> +The temple of Karnak, on the east bank of the Nile, whose massive stone<br> +roof was supported by one hundred and thirty-four majestic columns,<br> +forty-three feet high, and ranged in sixteen rows; the whole structure<br> +twelve hundred feet in length, and covered with figures of gods and<br> +heroes; is one of the grandest works of time.<br> +<br> +Should you visit the gorges of the Theban Mountains, your feet would<br> +stumble over the bones of departed generations. Princes, priests, and<br> +warriors, after reposing thousands of years in their deep seclusion, are<br> +dragged forth by poor peasants, and scattered around the doors of those<br> +cavern-like excavations in the everlasting hills.<br> +<br> +Lighting a torch or candle, you may wander along the rock-walled<br> +galleries several hundred feet into the heart of the summits, on each<br> +side of which are the apartments of death.<br> +<br> +Inscriptions, three thousand years old, can be distinctly traced.<br> +<br> +How little thought the Hebrews, while toiling under the shadow of<br> +palaces, or flying at night from the mighty realm of Egypt, of what we<br> +find to-day along the banks of the Nile!<br> +<br> +The doom of Babylon, with that of the great invaders and conquerors of<br> +Palestine, is equally wonderful and instructive.<br> +<br> +Probably no nation of antiquity was more distinguished for luxury and<br> +corrupt pleasures than this unrivalled city.<br> +<br> +Its last king, Nabonnidus, reigned about one hundred years before Christ<br> +appeared; and in less than that time afterward, the city walls enclosed<br> +a hunting ground or park for the recreation of Persian monarchs. We<br> +cannot well imagine a more complete destruction than has overtaken the<br> +once rich and gay metropolis. The ruins are a number of mounds, formed<br> +of crumbled buildings, and strewn all over with pieces of brick,<br> +bitumen, and potter's vessels.<br> +<br> +The Assyrian kings of western Asia, also invaded the Holy Land. They<br> +ruled a vast and powerful realm, whose principal city was Nineveh, to<br> +which Jonah was sent with a message from God.<br> +<br> +Sennacherib, the monarch who reigned seven hundred years before Christ,<br> +marched his armies against the cities of Judah and took them. Not<br> +satisfied with the terms of surrender he threatened further invasion.<br> +<br> +At this crisis, in answer to prayer, Jehovah sent his angel to destroy<br> +the troops; and in one night the unseen messenger of destruction slew<br> +one hundred and eighty-five thousand men.<br> +<br> +Of this miraculous defeat a gifted but irreligious and unhappy poet has<br> +sung:<br> +<br> + And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,<br> + But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride;<br> + And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,<br> + And cold as the spray of the rock-beaten surf.<br> +<br> + And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,<br> + With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;<br> + And the tents were all silent, and the banners alone,<br> + And the lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.<br> +<br> + And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,<br> + And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;<br> + And the might of the Gentiles, unsmote by the sword,<br> + Hath melted like snow at the glance of the Lord.<br> +<br> +Now the greater part of the country which once formed Assyria, is under<br> +the sway of the Turks.<br> +<br> +Mosul, a missionary station of the American Board of Foreign Missions,<br> +is believed to mark the site of ancient Nineveh.<br> +<br> +The original inhabitants of Assyria, in modern history, are the Kurds; a<br> +barbarous and warlike race. Some of these live in villages, and others<br> +roam over the country. They are said to resemble, in personal<br> +appearance, the Highlanders of Scotland.<br> +<br> +But the most remarkable fact in regard to the population, is the ancient<br> +church of the Nestorians, among the mountains. This Christian people<br> +have for ages maintained their independence, defying the storms of<br> +revolution that have swept over all the country around their mountain<br> +home.<br> +<br> +Dr. Grant, a missionary, thinks they are descendants of the "lost tribes<br> +of Israel." We recollect to have seen in the hands of the venerable<br> +missionary, Rev. Dr. Perkins, a copy of the Scriptures preserved for<br> +many hundred years by them: sometimes hidden away, to prevent its<br> +destruction by its enemies.<br> +<br> +Not long ago, one of the Nestorian bishops, Mar Yohanah, visited this<br> +country, and attracted much attention. A Jew-like, noble man personally,<br> +and a devout Christian.<br> +<br> +But if you look on the map of Asia, you will see that Mosul and the<br> +Nestorian country is in Persia, and may wonder what it has to do with<br> +Assyria. In the conquests which weakened and divided the Assyrian<br> +empire, new kingdoms were formed; and while none can now accurately<br> +trace the boundaries of that great monarchy, we have the later outline<br> +of Persia. More will be said of this remarkable kingdom when we come to<br> +the story of Mordecai and Esther.<br> +<br> +The thrones of these ancient monarchies were, at first, no more than an<br> +ornamented arm-chair, higher than ordinary seats, with a footstool for<br> +the royal feet. Then it was made in more massive form and richly carved,<br> +with steps ascending to it.<br> +<br> +Some of the thrones were of ivory, adorned with gold; and it is<br> +recorded, that Archelaus addressed the multitude from a throne of solid<br> +gold--a magnificent fortune in itself. Thus gradually the throne became<br> +the highest symbol of power, and is often applied to Jehovah's<br> +sovereignty. He is represented as sitting upon a throne of light, and<br> +around him continually, attending angels, veiling their faces with their<br> +wings, and waiting to hear and obey his mandates; crying with their<br> +voices of celestial music, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which<br> +was and is, and is to come!" A "crystal sea" is before this "White<br> +Throne" of a pure and just authority, and on it worships a resplendent<br> +host. Every sound and sight of glory and honor, that language can<br> +express, or the finest imagination picture, is ascribed to that eternal<br> +royalty.<br> +<br> +Next to the throne, the crown became a sign of authority, although it<br> +was applied, at first, to other ornaments for the head, properly called<br> +coronets, garlands, tiaras, bands, mitres, etc.<br> +<br> +The idea of a kingly crown was suggested by the diadem, which was a<br> +fillet--a mere band like that used to bind the long hair worn by the<br> +people--but richer and of a different color. It was natural and easy,<br> +with the increase of power and wealth, to make the crown a more costly<br> +and showy symbol of kingly sway.<br> +<br> +David wore a crown of gold set with jewels, he took from the king of the<br> +Ammonites.<br> +<br> +The more modern crowns of Asia, where all the kings reigned, of whom we<br> +have read in these pages, are of different shapes, and some of them very<br> +rich and expensive, ornamented with precious stones and plumes of the<br> +rarest kind.<br> +<br> +Crowns are also often mentioned in the Bible as an emblem of power; and<br> +the Christian conqueror of his sins and the world, it is written, shall<br> +have "a crown of life."<br> +<br> +The sceptre was the third token of sovereignty. The word originally<br> +signified a staff of wood of the length of a man's height. Later, it was<br> +smaller in form, and often plated with gold, and enriched with various<br> +decorations. Inclining, or holding out the sceptre was a mark of royal<br> +favor; and kissing it by another, a sign of submission.<br> +<br> +Jehovah's rule is mentioned frequently in the inspired record, under<br> +this figure. "His sceptre is a right sceptre," in one of the<br> +declarations, which even the wicked and most wretched on account of<br> +transgression, dare not deny.<br> +<br> +Under its wide dominion are Heaven, Earth, and Hell, not only, but a<br> +universe whose boundaries neither man nor angel can ever reach.<br> +<br> +"He is God over all, and blessed forever!"<br> +<br> +How amazing the truth of such a king and kingdom! Under the unsleeping<br> +eye of the Sovereign, the planet wheels on its axis with startling<br> +velocity, and the insect creeps on the grain of sand. A Russian poet<br> +beautifully sung:<br> +<br> + Oh, thou Eternal One! whose presence bright,<br> + All space doth occupy, all motion guide!<br> + Unchanged through time's all devastating flight,<br> + Thou only God, there is no God beside!<br> +<br> + Being above all beings! mighty one,<br> + Whom none can comprehend, and none explore!<br> + Who filled existence with thyself alone;<br> + Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er!<br> + Being, whom we call God, and know no more!<br> +<br> + Thou art! directing, guiding all. Thou art!<br> + Direct my understanding then to thee;<br> + Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart,<br> + Though but an atom 'mid immensity.<br> + Still I am something fashioned by thy hand!<br> + I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth,<br> + On the last verge of mortal being stand,<br> + Close to the realms where angels have their birth,<br> + Just on the boundaries of the spirit land.<br> +<br> + Oh, thoughts ineffable! Oh, visions blest!<br> + Though worthless our conceptions all of thee;<br> + Yet shall thy shadowed image fill our breasts,<br> + And waft its homage to thy Deity.<br> + God! thus alone my lowly thoughts can soar;<br> + Thus seek thy presence--Being wise and good!<br> + 'Midst thy best works admire, obey, adore!<br> + And when the tongue is eloquent no more,<br> + The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Ascent_of_Elijah"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 566px; height: 718px;" + alt="" src="images/096Pic.jpg"><br> + Ascent of Elijah.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Elisha_on_His_Death_Bed"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 567px; height: 712px;" + alt="" src="images/097Pic.jpg"><br> + Elisha on His Death Bed.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND<br> +<br> +PATRIARCHS, KINGS, AND KINGDOMS.<br> +<br> +HEBREW CAPTIVES; OR, MORDECAI AND ESTHER.<br> +<br> +<br> +The next pictured scene is in the Court of Persia. It will not be<br> +forgotten that Daniel was a captive in Babylon under the last kings, and<br> +probably died there after the city was taken by Cyrus. Of this great<br> +man's history as a captive we shall learn more when we go with the<br> +prophets of God in their peculiar mission.<br> +<br> +Nabonadrius, the son of Darius, usurped the throne after his father's<br> +death; and after reigning several years, Cyrus, a nephew of Darius, a<br> +Persian general who was occupied in foreign wars, turned his attention<br> +to the reigning monarch.<br> +<br> +He marched against the gorgeous metropolis, and besieged it for two<br> +years in vain. He at last thought of a stratagem which displayed his<br> +genius and boldness of action. He determined to turn the channel of the<br> +Euphrates, which went through the whole length of the city, from the<br> +walls where it entered, and get into the capital through the dry<br> +channel, under the massive pile which no battering rams could crumble.<br> +He succeeded in making a new bed for the stream, and his troops went<br> +into Babylon over a path washed for ages by the waters of the Euphrates.<br> +<br> +Media, a word some suppose to be derived from Madai, the son of Japheth,<br> +was the name of a region adjacent to ancient Assyria, inhabited by<br> +warlike hordes for centuries. The little that is said of these people in<br> +the Bible, is in connection with the Persians. Both seemed to have<br> +become one nation; first the Medes gaining the ascendancy, and then the<br> +Persians. But the darkness which rests upon the origin of the Asiatic<br> +lands bewilders the most careful historian.<br> +<br> +The conspicuous appearance of the Medes and Persians begins with Cyrus<br> +the Great, the conqueror of Babylon, a remarkable monarch in power,<br> +glory, and character.<br> +<br> +<a href="#Magi_offering_Presents">The picture of the magi who journeyed +from the east</a> to find the infant<br> +Messiah, presents a peculiar view of the Persians and Arabians. Among<br> +these gentile nations were men of great attainments in whatever of<br> +philosophy and astrology there was in the world. The Ethiopian race is<br> +represented, and it may have been that dark faces were over the<br> +wonderful child. Color was evidently then no honor or disgrace; the man<br> +was the object of regard or scorn. More will be said of these wonderful<br> +travellers in the more appropriate place in the annals of Palestine.<br> +Cyrus the first, and noble Persian monarch, was kindly disposed toward<br> +the captive Jews, and Daniel had great influence over him. In the very<br> +year of his conquest he issued a decree, in which, after acknowledging<br> +the supremacy of the Lord, and that to him he owed all kingdoms, he gave<br> +full permission to the Jews in any part of his dominions, to return to<br> +their own land and to rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem. No<br> +sooner were the favorable dispositions of the king thus made known, than<br> +the members of the latter captivity--those of the tribes of Judah,<br> +Benjamin, and Levi--repaired in large numbers to Babylon from their<br> +different places of residence; some to make preparations for their<br> +journey; and others, who had no intention to return themselves, to<br> +assist those who had. Most of the existing race had been born in<br> +Babylonia, and in the course of years families had established<br> +themselves in the country, and formed connections, and gathered around<br> +them comforts which were not easily abandoned. Only a minority availed<br> +themselves of the decree in their favor; the most of the people choosing<br> +to remain in the land of their exile; and it has always been the opinion<br> +of the Jews that the more illustrious portion of their nation remained<br> +in Babylonia.<br> +<br> +The first return caravan was organized and directed by Zerubbabel, the<br> +grandson of king Jehoiachim, and by Jeshua, a grandson of the last<br> +high-priest Jozadak. The number of persons who joined them was about<br> +fifty thousand, including above seven thousand male and female servants.<br> +Before they departed, Cyrus restored to them the more valuable of the<br> +sacred utensils, which had been removed by Nebuchadnezzar, and preserved<br> +by his successors, and which were now to be again employed in the<br> +service of the sanctuary. Zerubbabel was also entrusted with large<br> +contributions toward the expense of rebuilding the temple, from the Jews<br> +who chose to remain behind. The beasts of burden in this caravan<br> +exceeded eight thousand. In the book of Ezra, the names of the families<br> +which returned to this first colony, and in those which followed, are<br> +carefully given.<br> +<br> +The incidents of the journey are not related. On reaching Palestine the<br> +caravan repaired at once to Jerusalem, which they found utterly ruined<br> +and desolate. Before they separated to seek habitations for themselves,<br> +they raised a large sum by voluntary contributions toward the rebuilding<br> +of the temple. Then they employed themselves in securing dwellings and<br> +necessaries for their families; and at the ensuing Feast of Tabernacles<br> +again repaired to Jerusalem, where sacrifices were offered on an altar<br> +erected upon the ruins of the temple. After this the people applied<br> +themselves zealously to the necessary preparation for the restoration of<br> +that edifice. In a year from the departure from Babylon, the<br> +preparations were sufficiently advanced to allow the work to be<br> +commenced; and, accordingly, the foundations of the second temple were<br> +then laid with great rejoicings and songs of thanksgiving. While the<br> +work proceeded, the Samaritans manifested a desire to assist in the<br> +work, and to claim a community of worship in the new temple. This was<br> +declined by the Jews on the ground that the decree of the Persian king<br> +extended only to the race of Israel.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Magi_offering_Presents"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 648px; height: 520px;" + alt="" src="images/101Pic.jpg"><br> +The Magi offering Presents.<br> +<br> +<br> +Being thus frustrated in their design, the Samaritans employed every<br> +means they could devise to thwart the undertaking. Their origin appears<br> +to have given them considerable influence at the Persian court; and<br> +although they could not act openly against the plain decree of Cyrus, an<br> +unscrupulous use of their money and influence among the officers of the<br> +government enabled them to raise such obstructions, that the people were<br> +much discouraged, and the work proceeded but languidly, and at length<br> +was suspended altogether. From this lethargy they were roused by the<br> +exhortations and reproaches of the prophet Haggai; and the building was<br> +resumed with fresh zeal.<br> +<br> +The new temple was dedicated with great solemnity and joy. The Jews were<br> +allowed the free exercise of their religion and laws, and the government<br> +was directed by a governor of their own nation, or by the high-priest,<br> +when there was no other governor. There was, in fact, a distinct<br> +commonwealth, with its own peculiar institutions; and, although<br> +responsible to the Persian king, and to his deputy the governor-general<br> +of Syria, it was more secure under the protection of the monarch than it<br> +would have been in complete independence. The dreadful lesson taught by<br> +the desolation of the land, the destruction of the temple, and the<br> +captivity of the people, had effectually cured the Jews of that tendency<br> +to idolatry which had been their ruin. But, as time went on, the<br> +distortion of character which had been restrained in one direction broke<br> +forth in another; and although they no longer went formally astray from<br> +a religion which did not suit their depravity, they, by many vain and<br> +mischievous fancies, fabricated a religion suited to their dispositions<br> +out of the ritual to which they adhered.<br> +<br> +Early in the reign of Artaxerxes, son of the mighty Xerxes, the Hebrews<br> +went to work on the beloved city with a regular plan of its rebuilding,<br> +including an encircling wall.<br> +<br> +This king had learned by reading and traditions, the veneration which<br> +his most distinguished predecessors had shown for the God of Israel; and<br> +about seven years after he ascended the throne, he commissioned Ezra,<br> +the priest and scribe, to take charge of the religious service at<br> +Jerusalem. And he was, in reality, the governor or viceroy under the<br> +monarch.<br> +<br> +Those of the Hebrews who desired to do so, were invited to return with<br> +him, and others who remained, were to pay contributions for the use of<br> +the temple.<br> +<br> +To this fund the king himself and his council contributed large sums of<br> +money; and the ministers of the royal realms west of the Euphrates, were<br> +enjoined to furnish Ezra with silver, wheat, wine, oil, and salt, that<br> +the sacrifices and offerings of the temple should be constantly kept up;<br> +all of which is said to have been done in order to avert from the king<br> +and his sons, the wrath of the God of the Hebrews, who was held in much<br> +honor at the Persian court.<br> +<br> +An exemption from all taxes was also promised to persons engaged in the<br> +service of the temple; but this boon did not induce any of the Levitical<br> +tribe to join the caravan which assembled on the banks of the river<br> +Ahava, in Babylonia: and it was with some difficulty that Ezra at last<br> +induced some of the priestly families to go with him. The whole caravan<br> +was composed of one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four adult<br> +males--making, with wives and children, about six thousand persons. As a<br> +party thus composed had little military strength, and as the journey<br> +across the desert was then, as it always has been, dangerous from the<br> +Arab tribes by which it is infested, they felt considerable anxiety on<br> +this account. But Ezra, from having said much to the king of the power<br> +of God to protect and deliver those that trusted in him, felt<br> +disinclined to apply for a guard of soldiers; and thought it better that<br> +the party should, in a solemn act of fasting and prayer, cast themselves<br> +upon the care of their God. Their confidence was rewarded by the perfect<br> +safety with which their journey was accomplished. In four months they<br> +arrived at Jerusalem.<br> +<br> +While Ezra, with his sealed commission from Artaxerxes, was urging on<br> +the noble work at Jerusalem, an unexpected danger to his people in<br> +Babylon and its provinces arose--a sudden and fearful crisis in destiny.<br> +<br> +Among the captives there was Esther, a Hebrew maiden. The Persian king,<br> +to commemorate his victorious and prosperous reign, extending from Judea<br> +to Ethiopia, and embracing a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, made a<br> +magnificent feast, which continued six months. This was to display his<br> +power and wealth, before the nobility of his realm, and representatives<br> +from the conquered provinces of his spreading empire. At the expiration<br> +of this brilliant entertainment, he gave the common people, without<br> +distinction, a feast of seven days in the court of his palace. The rich<br> +canopy and gorgeous curtains, with their fastenings--the tall columns,<br> +the golden couches, and tesselated floors--are described as "white,<br> +green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple<br> +to silver rings, and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and<br> +silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and black, and white marble."<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Our_Saviour_Teaching"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 680px; height: 524px;" + alt="" src="images/107Pic.jpg"><br> + Our Saviour Teaching in the Temple.<br> +<br> +<br> +Of this grandeur, in the ashes strewn by wasting ages, are imposing<br> +remains. Modern travellers pause before "the vast, solitary, mutilated<br> +columns of the magnificent colonnades," where youth and beauty graced<br> +the harems of Persian monarchs.<br> +<br> +Upon this occasion, the queen had a private pavilion for her female<br> +guests. But during the successive days of dissipation, the mirth waxed<br> +loud in the apartments of the king. The flashing goblet circulated<br> +freely, and his brain became wild with "wine and wassail." As the<br> +crowning display of his glory, Vashti, in her jeweled robes and diadem,<br> +must grace the banquet. The command was issued, and the messenger sent.<br> +This mandate, requiring what at any time was contrary to custom, the<br> +appearance of a woman, unveiled, in an assemblage of men, now when<br> +revelry and riot betrayed the royal intoxication, overwhelmed the queen<br> +with surprise. A thousand wondering and beaming eyes were upon her<br> +during the brief pause before answering the summons. Her proud refusal<br> +to appear, roused the fury of Ahashuerus, already mad with excitement.<br> +It would not answer to pass by the indignity, for a hundred and<br> +twenty-seven provinces were represented at his court, and the news of<br> +his sullied honor would reach every dwelling in his realm, and curl the<br> +lip of the serf with scorn. The nobles fanned the flame of his<br> +indignation. Unless a withering rebuke were administered, their<br> +authority as husbands would be gone, and the caprice of woman make every<br> +family a scene of daily revolution.<br> +<br> +Vashti was divorced--and to provide for the emergency, his courtiers<br> +suggested that he should collect in his harem all the beautiful virgins<br> +of the land, and choose him a wife. Among these was Hadassah, the<br> +adopted daughter of Mordecai. He urged her to enter her name among the<br> +rivals for kingly favor. It was not ambition merely that moved Mordecai.<br> +He had been meditating upon the unfolding providence of God toward his<br> +scattered nation, and felt that there was deeper meaning in passing<br> +events than the pleasures and anger of his sovereign. Arrayed richly as<br> +circumstances would permit, the beautiful Jewess, concealing her<br> +lineage, joined the youthful procession that entered the audience<br> +chamber of Ahashuerus, where he sat in state, to look along the rank of<br> +female beauty, floating like a vision before him.<br> +<br> +The character of Esther is here exhibited at the outset; for when she<br> +went into the presence of the king, for his inspection, instead of<br> +asking for gifts as allowed by him, and as the others did, she took only<br> +what the chamberlain gave her. Of exquisite form and faultless features,<br> +her rare beauty at once captivated the king, and he made her his wife.<br> +<br> +Mordecai was a man of a noble heart, grand intellect, and unwavering<br> +integrity; there was nevertheless an air of severity about him--a<br> +haughty, unbending spirit; which with his high sense of honor and scorn<br> +of meanness would prompt him to lead an isolated life. We have sometimes<br> +thought that even he had not been able to resist the fascinations of his<br> +young and beautiful cousin, and that the effort to conceal his feelings<br> +had given a greater severity to his manner than he naturally possessed.<br> +Too noble, however, to sacrifice such a beautiful being by uniting her<br> +fate with his own, when a throne was offered her; or perceiving that the<br> +lovely and gentle being he had seen ripen into faultless womanhood could<br> +never return his love--indeed, could cherish no feeling but that of a<br> +fond daughter, he crushed by his strong will his fruitless passion. In<br> +no other way can I account for the life he led, lingering forever around<br> +the palace gates, where now and then he might get a glimpse of her who<br> +had been the light of his soul, the one bright bird which had cheered<br> +his exile's home. That home he wished no longer to see, and day after<br> +day he took his old station at the gates of Shushan, and looked upon the<br> +magnificent walls that divided him from all that had made life<br> +desirable. It seems also as if some latent fear that Haman, the favorite<br> +of the king--younger than his master, and of vast ambition, might<br> +attempt to exert too great an influence over his cousin, must have<br> +prompted him to treat the latter with disrespect, and refuse him that<br> +homage which was his due. No reason is given for the hostility he<br> +manifested, and which he must have known would end in his own<br> +destruction.<br> +<br> +Whenever Haman, with his retinue, came from the palace, all paid him the<br> +reverence due to the king's favorite but Mordecai, who sat like a<br> +statue, not even turning his head to notice him. He acted like one tired<br> +of life, and at length succeeded in arousing the deadly hostility of the<br> +haughty minister. The latter, however, scorning to be revenged on one<br> +man, and he a person of low birth, persuaded the king to decree the<br> +slaughter of all the Jews in his realm. The news fell like a thunderbolt<br> +on Mordecai. Sullen, proud, and indifferent to his own fate, he had<br> +defied his enemy to do his worst; but such a savage vengeance had never<br> +entered his mind, It was too late, however, to regret his behavior.<br> +Right or wrong, he had been the cause of the bloody sentence, and he<br> +roused himself to avert the awful catastrophe. With rent garments, and<br> +sackcloth on his head, he travelled the city with a loud and bitter cry,<br> +and his voice rang even over the walls of the palace, in tones that<br> +startled its slumbering inmates.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Humility_Exemplified"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 641px; height: 521px;" + alt="" src="images/113Pic.jpg"><br> + Humility Exemplified--Giving Alms in Secret.<br> +<br> +<br> +It was told Esther, and she ordered garments to be given him, but he<br> +refused to receive them, and sent back a copy of the king's decree,<br> +respecting the massacre of the Jews, and bade her go in and supplicate<br> +him to remit the sentence. She replied that it was certain death to<br> +enter the king's presence unbidden, unless he chose to hold out his<br> +sceptre; and that for a whole month he had not requested to see her. Her<br> +stern cousin, however, unmoved by the danger to herself, and thinking<br> +only of his people, replied haughtily that she might do as she chose; if<br> +she preferred to save herself, delivery would come to the Jews from some<br> +other quarter, but she should die.<br> +<br> +From this moment the character of Esther unfolds itself. It was only a<br> +passing weakness that prompted her to put in a word for her own life,<br> +and she at once rose to the dignity of a martyr. The blood of the proud<br> +and heroic Mordecai flowed in her veins, and she said: "Go, tell my<br> +cousin to assemble all the Jews in Shushan, and fast three days and<br> +three nights, neither eating nor drinking; I and my maidens will do the<br> +same, and on the third day I will go before the king, and if I perish, I<br> +perish!" Noble and brave heart! death--a violent death--is terrible; but<br> +thou art equal.<br> +<br> +There, in that magnificent apartment, filled with perfume, and where the<br> +softened light, stealing through the gorgeous windows by day, and shed<br> +from golden lamps by night on marble columns and golden-colored<br> +couches, makes a scene of enchantment, behold Esther, with her royal<br> +apparel thrown aside, kneeling on the tesselated floor. There she has<br> +been two days and nights, neither eating nor drinking, while hunger, and<br> +thirst, and mental agony have made fearful inroads on her beauty. Her<br> +cheeks are sunken and haggard--her large and lustrous eyes dim with<br> +weeping, and her lips parched and dry, yet ever moving in inward prayer.<br> +Mental and physical suffering have crushed her young heart within her,<br> +and now the hour of her destiny is approaching. Ah! who can tell the<br> +desperate effort it required to prepare for that terrible interview.<br> +Never before did it become her to look so fascinating as then; and<br> +removing with tremulous anxiety the traces of her suffering, she decked<br> +herself in the most becoming apparel she could select. Her long black<br> +tresses were never before so carefully braided over her polished<br> +forehead, and never before did she put forth such an effort to enhance<br> +every charm, and make her beauty irresistible to the king.<br> +<br> +At length, fully arrayed and looking more like a goddess dropped from<br> +the clouds, than a being of clay, she stole tremblingly toward the<br> +king's chamber. Stopping a moment at the threshold to swallow down the<br> +choking sensation that almost suffocated her, and to gather her failing<br> +strength, she passed slowly into the room, while her maidens stood<br> +breathless without, listening, and waiting with the intensest anxiety<br> +the issue. Hearing a slight rustling, the king, with a sudden frown,<br> +looked up to see who was so sick of life as to dare to come unbidden in<br> +his presence, and lo! Esther stood speechless before him. Her long<br> +fastings and watchings had taken the color from her cheeks, but had<br> +given a greater transparency in its place, and as she stood, half<br> +shrinking, with the shadow of profound melancholy on her pallid, but<br> +indescribably beautiful countenance, her pencilled brow slightly<br> +contracted in the intensity of her excitement, her long lashes dripping<br> +in tears, and lips trembling with agitation; she was, though silent, in<br> +herself an appeal that a heart of stone could not resist. The monarch<br> +gazed long and silently on her, as she stood waiting her doom. Shall she<br> +die? No; the golden sceptre slowly rises and points to her. The<br> +beautiful intruder is welcome, and sinks like a snow wreath at his feet.<br> +Never before did the monarch gaze on such transcendent loveliness; and<br> +spell-bound and conquered by it, he said, in a gentle voice: "What wilt<br> +thou, Queen Esther? What is thy request? It shall be granted thee, even<br> +to the half of my kingdom!"<br> +<br> +Woman-like, she did not wish to risk the influence she had suddenly<br> +gained, by asking the destruction of his favorite, and the reversion of<br> +his unalterable decree, and so she prayed only that he and Haman might<br> +banquet with her the next day. She had thrown her fetters over him, and<br> +was determined to fascinate him still more deeply before she ventured on<br> +so bold a movement. At the banquet he again asked her what she desired,<br> +for he well knew that it was no ordinary matter that had induced her to<br> +peril her life by entering unbidden his presence. She invited him to a<br> +second feast, and at that to a third. But the night previous to the<br> +last, the king could not sleep, and after tossing awhile on his troubled<br> +couch, he called for the record of the court, and there found that<br> +Mordecai had a short time before informed him through the queen, of an<br> +attempt to assassinate him, and no reward been bestowed. The next day,<br> +therefore, he made Haman perform the humiliating office of leading his<br> +enemy in triumph through the streets, proclaiming before him: "This is<br> +the man whom the king delighteth to honor." As he passed by the gallows<br> +he had the day before erected for that very man, a shudder crept through<br> +his frame, and the first omen of coming evil cast its shadow on his<br> +spirit.<br> +<br> +</big></big><big><big><a name="Herods_Cruel_Massacre"></a></big></big><br> +<big><big><img style="border: 2px solid ; width: 712px; height: 495px;" + alt="" src="images/119.JPG"><br> + Herod's Cruel Massacre.<br> +<br> +<br> +The way was now clear to Esther, and so the next day, at the banquet, as<br> +the king repeated his former offer, she, reclining on the couch, her<br> +chiseled form and ravishing beauty inflaming the ardent monarch with<br> +love and desire, said in pleading accents: "I ask, O king, for my life,<br> +and that of my people. If we had all been sold as bondmen and bondwomen,<br> +I had held my tongue, great as the evil would have been to thee." The<br> +king started, as if stung by an adder, and with a brow dark as wrath,<br> +and a voice that sent Haman to his feet, exclaimed: "Thy life! my queen?<br> +Who is he? where is he that dare even harbor such a thought in his<br> +heart? He who strikes at thy life, radiant creature, plants his<br> +presumptuous blow on his monarch's bosom." "That man," said the lovely<br> +pleader, "is the wicked Haman." Darting one look of vengeance on the<br> +petrified favorite, he strode forth into the garden to control his<br> +boiling passions. Haman saw at once that his only hope now was in moving<br> +the sympathies of the queen in his behalf; and approaching her, he began<br> +to plead most piteously for his life. In his agony he fell on the couch<br> +where she lay, and while in this position the king returned. "What!" he<br> +exclaimed, "will he violate the queen here in my own palace!" Nothing<br> +more was said; no order was given. The look and voice of terrible wrath<br> +in which this was said, were sufficient. The attendants simply spread a<br> +cloth over Haman's face, and not a word was spoken. Those who came in,<br> +when they saw the covered countenance, knew the import. It was the<br> +sentence of death. The vaulting favorite himself dare not remove it--he<br> +must die, and the quicker the agony is over, the better. In a few hours<br> +he was swinging on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai.<br> +<br> +After this, the queen's power was supreme--every thing she asked was<br> +granted. To please her he let his palace flow in the blood of five<br> +hundred of his subjects, whom the Jews slew in self-defence. For her he<br> +hung Haman's ten sons on the gallows where the father had suffered<br> +before them. For her he made Mordecai prime minister, and lavished<br> +boundless favors on the hitherto oppressed Hebrews. And right worthy was<br> +she of all he did for her. Lovely in character as she was in person, her<br> +sudden elevation did not make her vain, nor her power haughty. The same<br> +gentle, pure, and noble creature when queen, as when living in the lowly<br> +habitation of her cousin, generous, disinterested, and ready to die for<br> +others, she is one of the loveliest characters furnished in the annals<br> +of history.<br> +<br> +It is a little singular that the words, God or Providence, are not<br> +mentioned in the whole book of Esther. The writer seems studiously to<br> +have avoided any reference to them, as if he did not wish to recognize<br> +the interposition of Heaven in any of the events that transpired; while<br> +his narrative is evidently designed to teach nothing else. The hand of<br> +Providence is everywhere seen managing the whole scheme.<br> +<br> +But the greatest acts of Providence awaken the least attention among<br> +blind, mortal men. We are startled when some great occurrence meets us,<br> +but overlook the vast effects which follow causes that attracted no eye<br> +but God's. We see the flying timbers and flaming ruins of a<br> +conflagration, and forget that a concealed spark did it all.<br> +<br> +A noble mind and body are wrecked, and many weep; yet how few think that<br> +the blast of moral ruin which stranded the life-bark, was once the quiet<br> +breath of a mother's unholy influence leading the boy astray.<br> +<br> +So the splendid career of a hero and patriot, like Mordecai, Moses, or<br> +Washington, is less glorious than the simple decision made amid the<br> +conflicting emotions of youthful aspiration to honor God and serve a<br> +struggling country.<br> +<br> +Jehovah illustrates this principle in all his administration. What to<br> +Elijah on the solemn mount was the sweep of the hurricane, rending the<br> +cliffs and tossing rocks like withered leaves in air--the thunder of the<br> +earthquake's march--the blinding glow of the mantling flame--compared to<br> +the "still small voice" that thrilled on his ear, so full of God! It is<br> +not strange that there is to be a reckoning for "idle words" even, for<br> +they have shaken the world, and their echo will never die away.<br> +<br> +Their mutual love and devout character, remind us of the affectionate<br> +fidelity to each other and to God, of Ruth the Moabitess, and her Hebrew<br> +mother-in-law Naomi, who lived in the time of the Judges.<br> +<br> +Naomi's family were self-exiled on account of famine in Palestine. Ruth<br> +had married a man of Moab; but he and her father-in-law died. A sister<br> +whose husband was brother to her own, was also a widow; and when Naomi<br> +determined to return to her native land, at her request, Orphah sought<br> +her people and friends.<br> +<br> +Ruth would not leave the pilgrim to the Holy Land. Embracing Naomi, she<br> +said: "Entreat me not to leave thee, for where thou goest I will go, and<br> +where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be mine, and thy God<br> +my God: where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried: naught<br> +but death shall part us."<br> +<br> +Beautiful and brave heart! home, and friends, and wealth, nay, the gods<br> +she had been taught to worship, were all forgotten in the warmth of her<br> +affection. Tearful yet firm, "Entreat me not to leave thee," she said.<br> +"I care not for the future; I can bear the worst; and when thou art<br> +taken from me, I will linger around thy grave till I die, and then the<br> +stranger shall lay me by thy side!" What could Naomi do but fold the<br> +beautiful being to her bosom and be silent, except as tears gave<br> +utterance to her emotions. Such a heart outweighs the treasures of the<br> +world, and such absorbing love, truth, and virtue, make all the<br> +accomplishments of life appear worthless in comparison.<br> +<br> +God blessed their devotion to him and each other, giving his special<br> +tokens of favor to the young heroine from Moab. Upon reaching Bethlehem,<br> +she went into the fields of a kinsman of her mother-in-law, Boaz, a<br> +wealthy citizen, to glean after the reapers. He inquired after her,<br> +became interested in her, and, remembering his obligations on account of<br> +their relationship, married her. An honorable portion and plenty crowned<br> +the homeless wanderings of Ruth and Naomi, as they did the captivity of<br> +Mordecai and Esther.<br> +<br> +About two hundred years after the death of the latter, the Hebrew<br> +Scriptures were translated into Greek by the order of Ptolemy<br> +Philadelphus, the Egyptian sovereign of Palestine, making the famous<br> +Septuagint--the name probably referring to seventy-two persons engaged<br> +on the work.<br> +<br> +A little over two centuries passed, and the Roman armies began their<br> +conquests in Asia. Less than a score of years later Herod the Great<br> +governed Judea, under the Roman emperor. This Herod, whose reign closed<br> +the ancient annals of Palestine, was an Edomite--a cruel and ambitious<br> +man.<br> +<br> +Less than thirty years passed, and one of the darkest, bloodiest acts of<br> +any sovereign since time began, disgraced the reign of Herod.<br> +<br> +Jerusalem was astonished by the arrival of three sages from the distant<br> +east, inquiring for a new-born king, saying that they had seen "his<br> +star," and had come to offer him their gifts and homage. They found him<br> +in the manger at Bethlehem: and then repaired to their own country<br> +without returning to Jerusalem, as Herod had desired. The jealousy of<br> +that tyrant had been awakened by their inquiry for the "King of the<br> +Jews;" and as their neglect to return prevented him from distinguishing<br> +the object of their homage, he had the inconceivable barbarity to order<br> +that all the <a href="#Herods_Cruel_Massacre">children in Bethlehem +under two years of age should be put<br> +to death</a>, trusting that the intended victim would fall in the +general<br> +slaughter; but Joseph had previously been warned in a dream to take his<br> +wife and the infant to the land of Egypt, whence they did not return<br> +till after the death of Herod.<br> +<br> +That event was not long delayed. In the sixty-ninth year of his age.<br> +Herod fell ill of the disease which occasioned his death. That disease<br> +was in his bowels, and not only put him to the most cruel tortures, but<br> +rendered him altogether loathsome to himself and others. The natural<br> +ferocity of his temper could not be tamed by such experience. Knowing<br> +that the nation would little regret his death, he ordered the persons of<br> +chief note to be confined in a tower, and all of them to be slain when<br> +his own death took place, that there might be cause for weeping in<br> +Jerusalem. This savage order was not executed. After a reign of<br> +thirty-seven years, Herod died In the seventieth year of his age.<br> +<br> +Sir Walter Scott's beautiful "Hebrew Hymn" will fittingly close these<br> +sketches of Palestine:<br> +<br> + When Israel, of the Lord beloved,<br> + Out from the land of bondage came,<br> + Her father's God before her moved,<br> + An awful guide, in smoke and flame.<br> + By day along the astonished lands,<br> + The cloudy pillar glided slow;<br> + By night Arabia's crimsoned sands<br> + Returned the fiery columns' glow.<br> +<br> + There rose the choral hymn of praise,<br> + And trump and timbrel answered keen;<br> + And Zion's daughters poured their lays,<br> + With priests' and warriors' voice between.<br> + No portents now our foes amaze,<br> + Forsaken Israel wanders lone;<br> + Our fathers would not know Thy ways,<br> + And Thou has left them to their own.<br> +<br> + But present still, though now unseen,<br> + When brightly shines the prosperous day,<br> + Be thoughts of Thee, a cloudy screen,<br> + To temper the deceitful ray.<br> + And oh! when stoops on Judah's path,<br> + In shade and storm, the frequent night,<br> + Be Thou long-suffering, slow to wrath,<br> + A burning and a shining light.<br> +<br> + Our harps we left by Babel's streams,<br> + The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn,<br> + No censer round our altar beams,<br> + And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn,<br> + But thou hast said, "The blood of goat,<br> + The flesh of rams I will not prize,<br> + A contrite heart, an humble thought,<br> + Are more accepted sacrifice."<br> +<br> +</big></big> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2, by +Rev. 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