As he lay sore wounded in his chariot he must have known that he himself, taken away in his 39th year, was spared the sight of the woes that were ripe for his country, and the sons, who at 25 and 23 years old, must have shown that they would not walk in his ways, but bring down the judgment upon their own heads. 'Well was it for him that prophecies and psalms of the brighter day must have rung in his ears.

The remembrance of Josias is like the composition of the perfume that is made by the art of the apothecary: it is sweet as honey in all mouths, and as musick at a banquet of wine.

He behaved himself uprightly in the conversion of the people, and took away the abominations of iniquity.

He directed his heart unto the LORD, and in the time of the ungodly he established the worship of God.

All, except David and Ezekias and Josias, were defective: for they forsook the law of the Most High, even the kings of Judah failed.

This is the summing-up of his character by the Preacher some 300 years later, and certainly no king ever equalled him in the pure, brave love that worked on though under a doom against which he neither murmured nor struggled. But he died, and such was the lamentation for him that the mourning at Hadad-Rimmon, the nearest city, became a proverb for grief. The prophet Zechariah, who lived after the return from Babylon, alludes to it in the following remarkable way :

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

Here it is Him whom they have pierced Who shall be mourned for as Josiah was, the Son of David, and the Son of Josiah, Whom they have pierced by their sin, as Josiah was pierced by the Egyptian arrow because of his people's unworthiness. It brings the awful thought, how shall we look at Him whom they have pierced? Will it be as saved by those Wounds or as having had a part in them.

Jeremiah and all the singers and psalmists lamented, and sung dirges, while Josiah was laid to rest in the sepulchre of David, the

last of his race who should sleep there. And the people in haste made his second son Shallum, or Jehoahaz, king, instead of his eldest son Eliakim; but the mourning was hardly over before Necho sent a detachment of his army who took Jerusalem, and brought the young king a prisoner, after a reign of three months, to Necho's head-quarters at Riblah. He was carried away captive to Egypt, and Necho established his elder brother Eliakim as king in his stead, as a tributary. A change of name was a sign of subjugation, and Pharaoh altered the new king's name from El-iakim (God will set up) to Jehoiakim (JEHOVAH will set up), perhaps to show the Jews that he acknowledged that JEHOVAH was their God.

LESSON XCIV.

THE PROPHECY OF HABAKKUK.

B.C. 610.-HAB. i. 1--14.

Pharaoh-Necho was on his way to join a great confederacy against Nineveh, The Medes, a nation of the race of Japhet, inhabiting the hills to the north-east of Assyria, had been subdued by the conquering kings of Nineveh, but had never quietly endured the yoke. The Chaldeans, an exceedingly able and industrious people, who dwelt ir Babylon on the Euphrates, around the remains of the Tower of Babel, had made their city almost a rival to Nineveh, and at times had been independent. Esarhaddon had subdued them, but after his death they recovered their liberty, while his feeble son Saracus was on the throne. At last the two nations, Medes and Chaldeans, had joined together to besiege the city. With walls and ramparts that no machine could shake, no troops could scale, with fields, gardens, and cattle to supply food, and the Tigris to afford a continual supply of water, the Ninevites had no fears. According to the Greek writer Herodotus, their king was Sardanapalus, probably a form of Assurbanipal. He was a weak, womanlike man, who sat in his lace spinning among the women rather than exert himself,

and he never awoke to any fears, though the enemy were at his gates, until, says the Greek, he heard that an overflow of the Tigris had destroyed a part of his walls. Then, remembering an ancient oracle that declared that the city should fall when the river became its enemy, he gave himself up for lost, and being too proud to allow himself to be made prisoner, he shut himself up in his palace, and, setting fire to it, perished with all that it contained. Surely the oracle must have been the song of Nahum the Elkoshite. Look back to it (Less. lxxviii.) and see how perfectly it was fulfilled. Heaps of sand cover Nineveh now, and when there are dug into, the palaces are found with their timbers charred and their walls blackened by the flames of two thousand four hundred years ago.

But if Nineveh fell, Babylon, under a warlike race of kings, took up her career of conquest, and the Jewish prophets had known ever since the days of Hezekiah that the Chaldeans were the appointed avengers, and likewise that they should be overthrown when the time for Judah's penance should be ended. Another prophet, whose name was Habakkuk, foretold their ruin, and denounced their vices. It is not certain at what time he prophesied, but the time that seems most likely is either the reign of josiah or that of Jehoiakim, just when they were ruining Nineveh.

* The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!

Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save?

Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance?
For spoiling and violence are before me :

And there are that raise up strife and contention.

Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth :

For the wicked doth compass about the righteous;

Therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously:
For I will work a work in your days,

Which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation,

Which shall march through the breadth of the land,

To possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs.

They are terrible and dreadful :

Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.
Their horses also are swifter than the leopards,

And are more fierce than the evening wolves:

*Not for the younger ones.

And their horsemen shall spread themselves,
And their horsemen shall come from far:
They shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.
They shall come all for violence :

Their faces shall sup up as the east wind;
And they shall gather the captivity as the sand.
And they shall scoff at the kings,

And the princes shall be a scorn unto them :
They shall deride every strong hold;

For they shall heap dust, and take it.

Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend,
Imputing this his power unto his God.

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One?
We shall not die.

O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment:

And, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:

Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously;

And holdest thy tongue

When the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?
And makest men as the fishes of the sea;

As the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?

This is the beginning of Habakkuk's lament. He calls it a burden, because the sight was so sad of Jerusalem forsaking the law, and the bitter and hasty Chaldean nation raised up-swift and terrible horsemen who should take every city and overthrow the kings and princes. These Chaldeans would impute their conquest to the gods; but Habakkuk in his grief asks the bitter question how the great God, who is of purer eyes than can behold iniquity, can bear to see these mighty men gather all the world into their power like the fish in a net, and glorify themselves over it.

In the next chapter the prophet stands watching for the answer. He obtains it. Slow but sure these violent men will bring their punishment down on them, while "the just shall live by his faith." Then comes a rehearsal of the crimes of the Chaldeans, and the woes they shall bring, and yet the very crimes and oppressions of the Babylonians for their own pride and glory is doing the Lord's work.

Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts

That the people shall labour in the very fire,

And the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the
LORD

As the waters cover the sea.

We shall see how this greatest of all blessings began to be accomplished through the Babylonian conquest.

And then Habakkuk ends with one of the most magnificent hymns ever written, describing the glory and power of the LORD JEHOVAH.

LESSON XCV.*

THE SENTENCE ON THE WICKED PRINCES.

JER. xxii. abridged.

Thus saith the LORD; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,

And say, Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates:

Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.

For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.

But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.

Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. For thus saith the LORD touching Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place; He shall not return thither any more:

But he shall die in the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more.

Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work;

That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?

He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him : was not this to know me? saith the LORD.