the sheltering gourd. But these all conspire with the story itself in proclaiming that still wider lesson of which I have spoken. It is the rare protest of theology against the excess of theology-it is the faithful delineation, through all its various states, of the dark, sinister, selfish side of even great religious teachers. It is the grand Biblical appeal to the common instincts of humanity, and to the universal love of God, against the narrow dogmatism of sectarian polemics. There has never been "a generation" which has not needed the majestic revelation of sternness and charity, each bestowed where most deserved and where least expected, in the "sign of the Prophet Jonah." LECTURE XXXIV. THE FALL OF SAMARIA. THE external glory of Israel was raised to its highest pitch by Jeroboam the Second; but its internal condi tion already indicated its approaching dissolution. On that condition a sudden light is thrown from a new quarter. We have at last reached the point where the Prophetical spirit began to express itself, not only in action and speech, but in writing. It was in the kingdom of Judah that this development took place in its greatest force; but it took its rise in the kingdom of Is rael, in which, so long as it lasted, the Prophets found their chief home and their chief mission. Amos and Hosea, both belong, by birth or by their sphere of action, to the northern kingdom. Some few glimpses, too, into the state of Israel are afforded by the great Isaiah, now just appearing as a young man in the neighboring kingdom of Judah. It is from these several prophetic documents that we arrive at a knowledge of the state of society in Israel, such as we have not obtained of any period since the time of David. Their whole tone is so true to nature, so descriptive of the sins of actual States and Churches, that when the preacher, who of all perhaps in modern times has most nearly resembled an ancient Prophet, wished to denounce the sins of Florence, he used the Prophets of this period as his text-book. Savonarola's sermons on Amos are almost like Amos himself come to life again. 1 " 2 The foreign civilization of the house of Omri — the long depravation of the public worship from Moral state the time of Jeroboam the First—had produced of Samaria. their natural effect amongst the higher classes of society. One of the most widely spread vices was drunkenness in its most revolting forms. "Wine and new wine take "away the heart." "In the day of our King the "princes have made him sick with skins of wine." This was the canker in the beauty of the most glorious scene in Palestine, the luxuriant vale of Shechem, and the green hill of Samaria. The gross intoxication of the Israelite nobles and priests almost resembles that which unhappily prevailed amongst the English aristocracy and clergy in the last century. It extended even to the most sacred functionaries: "They have erred "through wine, and through strong drink are gone out "of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up by wine, "they are out of the way through strong drink; they "err in vision, they stumble in giving judgment; for all "tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is "no place clean."4 Even the monastic Nazarites were either required or forced against their vow to drink the forbidden wine.5 Great ladies, who are compared to the fat cows or heifers of Bashan, that feed on the rich mountains of Samaria, say to their lords, "Bring, and let "us drink." Out of this terrible vice sprang a brood 66 of other yet more desolating sins, 1 Hosea iv. 11. 2 Ibid. vii. 5. 3 Isaiah xxviii. 1. "Woe to the :rown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim." - licentiousness 7 in 4 Isaiah xxviii. 7, 8. 5 Amos ii. 8, 12 (Pusey). 6 Ibid. iv. 1, 2 (Pusey). 7 Hosea iv. 13; vii. 4; Amos ii. 7 all its forms, oppression of the poor, self-indulgent luxury, robbery and murder. To the eye of the Prophet "these it was, and nothing else, which he saw, "wherever he looked, whatever he heard, swearing, "lying, killing, stealing, adultery," one stream of blood meeting another, "till they joined in one wide inun. "dation." Many of the details are preserved to us. Innocent debtors were bought and sold as slaves, even for the sake of possessing a pair of costly sandals. The very dust which they threw on their heads as a sign of mourning was grudged to them. The large cloaks which were their only wrappers were used for the couches of the hard-hearted creditors.2 Strict as was still the profession of religion, — holy days, offerings, tithes, sabbaths faithfully observed - Priests, Prophets, Nazarites highly honored - sacred ephod and image duly reverenced,5 — yet even in the very Temple of Bethel the luxurious, listless revelry was carried on; pilgrims coming to the sacred places at Mizpeh and Gilead beyond the Jordan, or to Tabor and Shechem, in the heart of the kingdom, were attacked by bands of robbers, often headed by the Priests themselves. Even the "Jewish " craft, as we deem it in modern times, appeared in the readiness with which religious festivals were pressed into the service of hard bargains. The calf was still worshipped, as the sign of the True God, at Dan and Bethel, but the darker idolatries of Phoenicia, authorized there also under Ahab, had been never entirely uprooted. The Temple of Ashtaroth still remained in Samaria. Baal was a familiar name throughout the 1 Amos iv. 1, 2 (Pusey). 2 Ibid. ii. 6, 7; viii. 5, 6 (Pusey). 3 Hosea ii. 11; viii. 13; Amos iv. 4; v. 21-23. 4 Amos ii. 11. 6 5 Hosea iii. 4 (Ewald). 6 Amos ii. 8. 7 Hosea v. 1; vi. 8, 9. 8 Ibid. viii. 5, 6; x. 5; xi. 1. 9 2 Kings xiii. 6. country.1 Licentious rites were practised in the groves and on the hill-tops.2 The ancient sanctuary of Gilgal was at once a seat of constant pilgrimage, surrounded by altars, and yet also a centre of wide-spread heathen abominations.3 Amos. As the rise of the house of Jehu had been ushered in by Prophetic voices, so was its doom. As in the struggles of the earlier Jeroboam, so in the splendor of the second Jeroboam, a Prophet from Judah came to denounce the crimes of Israel. He was of no Prophetic school, with no regular Prophetic gifts,* – one of the shepherds who frequented the wild uplands near Tekoa, and who combined with his pastoral life the care of the sycamores in the neighboring gardens. He was, as has been well said, "a "child of nature." The imagery of his visions is full of his country life, whether in Judea or Ephraim. The locusts in the royal meadows, the basket of fruit, vineyards and fig-trees, the herds of cows rushing heedlessly along the hills of Samaria, the shepherds fighting with the lions for their prey, the lion and the bear, the heavy-laden wagon, the sifting of corn, these are his figures. He was not a poet, so much as an orator. His addresses are poetical, not from rhythm, but from the sheer force and pathos of his diction. He appears on the hill of Samaria to denounce the luxurious nobles. He appears in the very sanctuary of Bethel, like Iddo, to predict the violent death of the 1 Hosea ii. 8-17; xi. 2. 2 Ibid. iv. 13. 6 7 Ibid. vi. 14; vii. 9; ix. 1; viii. 3. Whether the words in vii. 10 are rep 3 Ibid. iv. 15; ix. 15; xii. 11; resented as having been spoken by Amos iv. 4. 4 Amos i. 1; vii. 14, 15. • Dr. Pusey on Âmos, pp. 151, 153. • Amos iv. 1. iii. 9 (Pusey, p. 148). Amos, or only put into his mouth by |