the presence of Jehovah I make the solemn vow that from this hour I shall
reform my ways."

He then kissed his beloved sisters, and, with burning brow and
tear-dimmed eyes, rushed from his father's house and away to a land of
strangers.



CHAPTER II.

NEARLY a quarter of a century had rolled away, and again the city of
Jerusalem was ablaze with light and social gayety. But vastly different
was the moral tone of the government. The good King Josiah had been
called to rest, and his profligate son Jehoiakim was on the throne.
Nightly the walls of the royal palace rang with the sound of high
revelry. Laughter and drunken song echoed through every part of the proud
edifice. Jehoiakim, following the example of some of his predecessors,
did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and filled the Holy City
with his foul abominations. His counselors also lived in forgetfulness of
the God of Israel. They flattered the king's vanity and encouraged his
excesses. Pride and infidelity promenaded together. Crimes of the darkest
hue were being perpetrated with official sanction, and, although God's
prophets had the courage to rebuke the sinful rulers and warn them of
their fearful doom, the moral standard of the city went lower and lower.

The night was serene and calm. The glorious orb shone brightly in the
eastern skies and shed her silvery beams on the glassy lakes of Judea. In
the clear moonbeams, those lofty towers of spotless white stood forth in
majestic grandeur on the walls of the great metropolis. Nature, with