looked it in consideration of their pure intentions. "The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his "heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though "he be not cleansed according to the purification of the "sanctuary." "2 The de struction of the High Places, From this restoration of the worship of JEHOVAH, Hezekiah proceeded to the removal of superstitions which had existed from the earliest times. Beside the Temple worship in Jerusalem, had descended what may be called the rural worship of the "high places," - at Bethel, at Beersheba, at Moriah," on the mountains of Gilead, at Ophrah, on the hills of Dan, at Mizpeh and Ramah, on the top of Olivet, on Mount Carmel, at Gibeon. They had been sanctioned by the Patriarchs, by Samuel, by David, by Solomon, by Elijah, by Asa and Jehoshaphat, by Joash and the High Priest Jehoiada, by the four first books of the Pentateuch, if not expressly, at least by implication.10 The "high place," properly so called, though doubtless originally deriving its name from the eminence on which it stood, was a pillar of stone, covered, like Mussulman tombs, or like the sacred house of the Kaaba, with rich carpets, robes, and shawls.12 An altar stood in front, on which, on ordinary occasions, oil, honey, flour, and incense were offered, and, on solemn occasions, slain animals, as in the Temple.1 Round about usually stood a sacred 11 1 2 Chr. xxx. 18, 19. 3 2 Kings xxiii. 15. 4 Amos viii. 14. 5 2 Sam. xxiv. 8. 6 Hos. xii. 11; v. 1; vi. 8. 7 2 Kings xxiii. 13. 81 Kings xviii. 30. 9 Ibid. iii. 4. Gen. xii. 7, 8; xxi. 13; xxii. 2, 4; xxxi. 54; Judg. vi. 25; xiii. 16; 1 Sam. vii. 10; ix. 12-19; 2 Sam. xv. 32. 11 Deut. vii. 5 (Heb.); xii. 3; xvi. 22 (Heb.); Num. xxxiii. 52; 2 King1 xxiii. 15. 12 Ezek. xvi. 16. 13 Ibid. xvi. 18. 14 1 Kings iii. 4. and of the Brazen Serpent. hedge or grove of trees.1 Such a grove, as we have seen, was allowed to stand even within the Temple precincts. There was a charm in the leafy shade2 of the oak, the poplar, and the terebinth, peculiarly attractive to the Israelite and Phoenician devotion. With these was joined, within the walls of Jerusalem itself, the time-honored worship of the Brazen Serpent. It had been brought from Gibeon with the tabernacle, and before it, from early times, incense was offered up, as it would seem, by the northern as well as the southern kingdom. Innocent as these vestiges of ancient religion might. seem to be, they were yet, like the Golden Calves in the northern kingdom, and on exactly similar grounds, inconsistent with the strict unity and purity of the Mosaic worship, and had an equal tendency to blend with the dark polytheism of the neighboring nations. It was reserved for Hezekiah to make the first onslaught upon them. He was, so to speak, the first Reformer; the first of the Jewish Church to protest against institutions which had outlived their usefulness, and which the nation had outgrown. The uprooting of those delightful shades, the levelling of those consecrated altars, the destruction of that mysterious figure "which Moses had "made in the wilderness," must have been a severe shock to the religious feelings of the nation. There was a wide-spread belief, which penetrated even to the adjacent countries, that the worship of Jehovah Himself had been abandoned, and that His support could no more be expected.1 The Sacred Serpent, the symbol of the Divine Presence, had been treated contemptuously as a mere serpent, a mere piece of brass, and nothing more The altars where Patriarchs and Kings had worshipped without rebuke had been overthrown, and the devotion of the nation restrained to a single spot. Was it possible that the faith of the people could survive, when its most cherished relics were so rudely handled, when so little was left to sustain it for the future? So has the popular conservative instinct of every age been terrified at every reformation, and maintained, with the alarmists of the time of Hezekiah, that, as one destructive step leads to another, we must have all or nothing. Hezekiah has been often quoted, and quoted justly, as an example that reform is not revolution, that Religion does not lose but gain by parting with needless incumbrances, however hallowed by long traditions or venerable associations. But whatever murmurs there may have been, they were checked by the approach of a great calamity, the deliverance from which was the best proof that God had not deserted His people, because He was worshipped with more truth and more simplicity. The rise of the Assyrian power has been already described. A new king was on the throne of SennaNineveh, whose name is the first that can be cherib. clearly identified in the Hebrew, Assyrian, and Grecian annals, Sennacherib (Sin-akki-irib). His grandeur is attested not merely by the details of the cuneiform inscriptions, but by the splendor of the palace, which, with its magnificent entrances and chambers, occupies a quarter of Nineveh, and by the allusions to his con 1 2 Kings xviii. 22; 2 Chr. xxxii. 12. Nachash serpent; Nechusht brass or brazen. = 3 Koyunjik. See a summary of his life as derived from the inscriptions, in Layard, Nineveh and Baby quests in all the fragments of ancient history that contain any memorial of those times. With a pride of style, peculiar to himself, he claims the titles of "the "great, the powerful King, the King of the Assyrians, "of the nations, of the four regions, the diligent ruler, "the favorite of the great gods, the observer of sworn "faith, the guardian of law, the establisher of monu"ments, the noble hero, the strong warrior, the first of "kings, the punisher of unbelievers, the destroyer of "wicked men." 1 Such was the King who for many years filled the horizon of the Jewish world. He entered from the north. His chariots were seen winding through the difficult passes of Lebanon. of Lebanon. He climbed to the lofty "heights," to the highest caravanserai2 of those venerable mountains. He passed along the banks of the streams which he drained by his armies, or over which he threw bridges for them to cross. It was his boast that he had penetrated even to the very sanctuary of Lebanon, where, on its extreme border, was the mysterious "park" or "garden" of the sacred cedars. He was renowned far and wide as their great destroyer. Inscriptions in his Assyrian palace record with pride that the wood with which it was adorned came from Lebanon. He was himself regarded as the Cedar of cedars. They shrieked aloud - so it seemed to the ear of the wakeful Prophets of the time they felt the fire at their roots, and saw the fall of their comrades. They raised a shout of joy when the as 'on, 138-147; and in Rawlinson's (meaning "to stay the night "), Isa. Ancient Monarchies, ii. 428-466. 1 Rawlinson, ii. 456. 2 "The lodge of its end," 2 Kings xix. 23. Compare the same word x. 29. 3 Isa xxxvii. 24, 25 (LXX.). 4 Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 118. 5 Isa. x. 33, 34. tidings reached them that he was fallen.1 He de scended by the romantic gorge of the river of the Wolf. His figure is still to be seen there carved on the rock, side by side with the memorials of the two greatest empires of the world before and after him, the Egyptian Rameses who had preceded him by a thousand years, and the Emperor Antoninus who by a thousand years succeeded him. From Arvad or Sidon he must have embarked for Cilicia, with a view to occupy the Phoenician island of Cyprus; and there took place the first encounter between the Greeks and the Asiatics. There, also, Tarsus is said to have been founded, and, by a curious association, the city of the Apostle of the Gentiles derived its origin from the sagacious selection of the Assyrian conqueror. 4 To The main object of Sennacherib was not Palestine, but Egypt, the only rival worthy of his arms. have dried up the canals of the Nile was the climax of his ambition. It was as the outposts of Egypt that the fortresses of southern Palestine stood in the way of his great designs. Already Sargon, his predecessor, had sent his general against the strong Philistine city of Ashdod, then governed by an independent King' There was an army of Ethiopian and Egyptian auxiliaries to defend it. But the city was taken, its defenders were carried of, stripped of their clothing and barefoot, and their King fled to Egypt. Sennacherib now followed his father's His immediate xii. 1 Zech. xi. 1, 2. example. nacherib was now on his return from 2 See Sinai and Palestine, chap. Egypt. 3 Strabo, xiv. 4, 8; Arrian, ii. 5. 4 2 Kings xix. 24 (Heb.). It is on this chiefly that Ewald (iii. 631, note) bases the supposition that Sen |