with the extirpation of all idolatrous rites, and defiled every object of superstitious regard. He died, at the end of a prosperous reign, of a wound in battle, and with him passed away the last glories of the Jewish kingdom. Joachaz, Joakim, Joachin, and Sedechias, succeeded one another in the royal power, and added sin to sin, till the cup of national guilt was full. Joakim received awful warnings of what was at hand from the prophet Jeremias; but he insulted the prophet's messenger, and took the roll on which the judgments of God were written that he might read them, and cut it in pieces, and cast it contemptuously into the flames. He was then carried captive to Babylon by Nabuchodonosor its king, but was afterwards released and made a vassal of the Babylonians. At the end of three years he revolted against his conqueror, and was seized and put to death by the Chaldeans. His son Joachin was next led a captive to Babylon; and Sedechias, a son of Josias, was set up as nominal king of Juda by the victors. For nine years he thus reigned, sinning unrepentingly against God, and at last, rebelling against Nabuchodonosor, he was taken by Nabuchodonosor, his eyes were put out, and he was carried captive with all his people. The walls of Jerusalem were also levelled with the ground, the temple and royal palaces were destroyed, and none left but a few poor husbandmen to till the land.

CHAP. XXXIV. The Prophets before the Captivity.

WHILE the children of Israel were thus, from generation to generation, provoking God's anger, Almighty God Himself had not ceased from time to time to commission His prophets to declare His will to them, and to entreat them to turn from their sins before His wrath

fell upon them. Osee had prophesied under Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias, kings of Juda; Amos under Ozias king of Juda; Abdias about the same time; Micheas, who foretold that our Saviour would be born at Bethlehem, under Joathan; Joel, under

Manasses; and Sophonias, under Josias. Jeremias, who was affectionately served by his disciple, the prophet Baruch, was especially the prophet of the captivity; and as he had never ceased to warn his countrymen of the judgments coming upon them, so he remained at Jerusalem when all was overwhelmed in ruin, to comfort the miserable remnant that were left. On one occasion, the ungodly courtiers of king Sedechias had prevailed on the weak monarch to suffer them to do what they would with the prophet when he upbraided them with their sins; and Jeremias would have perished in a filthy dungeon, into which they cast him, but for the intercession of an Ethiopian servant of the king, who delivered him from his peril. And when Sedechias and all his court were carried away to Babylon, the prophet still fulfilled his sacred work; and while he mourned over the woes of his people, he urged upon the remnant left behind the duty of repentance under the chastising hand of God, bidding them put their trust in the Divine mercy rather than fly to Egypt, as they desired. They heeded him not, however, and fled to the Egyptians, taking with them Jeremias; and tradition reports that after their arrival in Egypt they murdered him.

Of all these inspired men, none foretold the events of the Christian Church so clearly as the prophet Isaias. He predicted many circumstances of the death and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ with the most minute distinctness, so that he has been called the evangelical prophet.

BOOK V.

THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RESTORATION.

CHAP. I. The History of Tobias.

At the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, the people of the ten tribes were already scattered in various parts of the land of Assyria, where they dwelt as a despised and captive race, but enjoying some degree of personal liberty. The Scripture records the private history of one of them, who was a model of piety and resignation to the Divine will. Tobias, a man of the tribe of Nepthali, lived at Ninive, but took frequent journeys to other parts in the exercise of acts of benevolence towards his more distressed fellow-countrymen. When the fury of Sennacherib, the Assyrian monarch, was roused afresh against the captive Israelites by the failure of his expedition against Ezechias the king of Juda, Tobias redoubled his efforts to soothe their sufferings, and, at the peril of his own life, was accustomed to bury the dead bodies of those whom the cruelty of the tyrant put to death. For a while he was forced to secrete himself from Sennacherib's vengeance, but on the king's death renewed his works of mercy unmolested.

On one occasion, wearied with his toils, he lay down to sleep beneath a swallow's nest, and the droppings from above falling into his eyes, destroyed his sight. Fresh trouble also befel him from his wife Anna, who reproached him angrily for a warning he one day gave her against stealing, when he supposed that a kid she had received in payment for her work had been dishonestly obtained. At length, weary and sad at heart, he prayed to God for death to end his sufferings. An intimation was sent him from the Almighty by the hands