Whilst the ministers of the temple were assiduously engaged in searching all the chambers of that immense struc ture, that every pollution might be banished, and every part undergo the complete renovation commanded by the king, Hilkiah, the high priest, laid his hand accidentally on the original copy of the law, which ought always to have been kept beside the ark, but had, probably, been put out of sight, into some remote corner, to preserve it from the exterminating fury of some one of their idolatrous kings.

Such was the degeneracy of the Israelites at this period of their history, that the king himself, who is commended for the early indications of his piety, and who at his coronation was directed to this book, as the law by which he was to govern, seems to have been, in a great measure, ignorant of its contents; for when the secretary or scribe, who was sent with the newly found treasure, was reading it in his presence, the penalties denounced upon transgressors threw him into the utmost consternation! Rending his clothes with the liveliest expressions of terror and grief, he sent directly to a prophetess, wife to the keeper of the wardrobe of the temple, to enquire how he might avert the wrath that was threatened in the book that had been found, and which he now feared would be poured out upon himself and his people, because "their fathers" had not obeyed its injunctions. "Go," returned Huldah, "and tell the man that sent you to me: Thus saith the Lord I will bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read, because they have forsaken me, and burned incense unto other gods. But to the king of Judah, which sent you to enquire of

the Lord, thus shall ye say to him-Because thy heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes and hast wept before me, I also have heard thee! saith the Lord-thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace, and thine eyes shall not see the evil that I will bring on this place."

The effect of this gracious promise to the young prince, was not such as might have been expected in a youth, the possessor of a sceptre, and not more than twenty years of age. It did not lull him into indolent security, but rather animated him to greater activity in the service of his beneficent Judge. The people, "both great and small," were assembled in the temple, and the king, standing in the midst, read aloud the " whole book of the covenant with their fathers;" then, himself giving the example, he required them to renew their engagement "to keep his commandments with all their heart and with all their soul."

When this solemn ceremony was finished, the work of reformation proceeded with unremitting ardour, and the demolition which Manasseh, after his restoration, had but begun, was completed. Indeed, when we see the extent and variety of the monuments of their devotion to idolatry -altars to the sun and moon, and chariots and horses in honour of the sun erected at the very "entrance of the house of the Lord," we are prepared for the awful catastrophe which approached, and only wonder that it was suspended so long!

The books of Chronicles and Kings relate many curious particulars of all these vicissitudes in Israel, which I pass

over without notice. One remarkable event, however, of this period, I must not omit, because you are desirous to see the fulfilment of prophecies. In their journey through the provinces, the king himself taking the round with the priests whom he had appointed to go throughout the land, and remove every emblem of false worship, the sepulchres of the priests, whom Jeroboam had sacrilegiously consecrated at Bethel, "of the lowest order of the people," were discovered, and the altar on which they had burned incense was yet standing. This was several ages after the prophecy which I related to you in the life of Jeroboam. Josiah was ignorant of the prediction*, which had even mentioned him by name; but in order to give a signal instance of his utter abhorrence of idolatry, he ordered the bones to be brought out of the sepulchre, and burnt upon the altar, thereby polluting it in the grossest manner, before it was destroyed. Thus was that prophecy fulfilled to the very letter. Turning accidentally, he saw another place of burial, having an inscription on the front, and enquired of his attendants what it meant. "This," they replied, " is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel !" "Let him alone," said the king; "let no man move his bones.' From Josiah's taking this circuit through the land of Israel, it appears that he had some authority beyond the ancient dominions of Judah. Some Israelites yet lingered in their beloved land, although the great mass of the nation had been carried into Assyria, and these, perhaps, submitted to his sway.

All Judah, and every part of Israel to which the perse

* Vide page 139.

vering king had access, being thoroughly cleared of pagan altars, and images, and groves, and high places, a passover was held, at the legal season, which for pomp and solemnity, exceeded all that had been celebrated since the days of Samuel.

From the time of this passover, in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, we have no account of his actions, till the thirty-first and last year of his reign; but there is every reason to conclude, that he never swerved from the sacred law.

*

In this interval, the Medes and Babylonians having verified the prediction of the Jewish Seers, in the destruction of Nineveh, Babylon, its ancient rival, became "the queen of the east"-the sole metropolis of Assyria, and the centre of political power. The neighbouring states beheld the colossal empire with dismay, and the king of Egypt resolved to check its growing greatness, by seizing Carchemish, a considerable city on the branch of the Euphrates. The route of the Egyptians lying through the dominions of Josiah, that monarch, either in resentment of the march of a foreign army through his empire, or actuated by a sense of obligation to Assyria, by whose clemency the eastern provinces had been held, since the restoration of Manasseh, took the fatal resolution to oppose their progress and unhappily perished in the attempt. Unhappily indeed for his country-for the glory of Judah expired with the last of their religious kings.

The loss of this excellent prince was deeply felt by the whole nation, whose mourning was so great and universal,

Especially Nahum and Zephaniah. See Newton on the Prophecies, vol. 1. p. 149.

that the mourning of Hadadrimmon*, the place where he received the wound of which he died, became a national phrase to express the greatest sorrow. The prophet Jeremiah, especially, who had found in Josiah at once the pious pupil, and the princely protector, foreseeing the evils which his successors would bring upon their people, and the train of calamities which awaited them, lamented his death in a pathetic elegy, which he composed for the public singers; and it continued to be sung for ages in commemoration of his extraordinary virtues.

CATHERINE. Is it not that beautiful strain which is ealled the Lamentations of Jeremiah?

MRS. M. Some commentators are of that opinion; others suppose that on Josiah to be lost, and this which remains, to refer rather to the general desolation of their country, which is as clearly and particularly foretold in this mournful song, as it is in his prophecies. The former opinion, however, may be well supported in the consideration of the vast importance of the life of Josiah to the welfare of the state, and the very different characters of his sons, who were to disgrace a throne which he had surrounded with splendour.

Jehoahaz, his son, had worn the crown but three months, when Necho returning, elated with success from his expedition against Carchemish, and deriving a pretext from the hostility of the late king, dispatched a party from Riblah, in Syria, unto Judah, seized Jehoahaz, loaded him with chains, and sent him into Egypt, where he ended his life! Proceeding then himself to Jerusalem, Pharoah-Necho exacted an immense tribute in gold and silver of the people,

* Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddo.