some alterations in the approaches to the temple, wishing, as far as we
can judge, that the King of Judah should henceforth, like his brother of
Nineveh, have a private, means of access to his national god.

This was but the least of his offences: for had he not offered his own
son as a holocaust at the moment he felt himself most menaced by the
league of Israel and Damascus? Among the people themselves there were
many faint-hearted and faithless, who, doubting the power of the God of
their forefathers, turned aside to the gods of the neighbouring nations,
and besought from them the succour they despaired of receiving from any
other source; the worship of Jahveh was confounded with that of Moloch
in the valley of the children of Hinnom, where there was a sanctuary or
Tophet, at which the people celebrated the most horrible rites: a large
and fierce pyre was kept continually burning there, to consume the
children whose fathers brought them to offer in sacrifice.* Isaiah
complains bitterly of these unbelievers who profaned the land with their
idols, "worshipping the work of their own hands, that which their own
fingers had made."** The new king, obedient to the divine command,
renounced the errors of his father; he removed the fetishes with which
the superstition of his predecessors had cumbered the temple, and which
they had connected with the worship of Jahveh, and in his zeal even
destroyed the ancient brazen serpent, the Nehushtan, the origin of which
was attributed to Moses.***

* Isa. xxx. 33, where the prophet describes the Tophet
Jahveh's anger is preparing for Assyria.

** Isa. ii. 8.

*** 2 Kings xviii. 4. I leave the account of this religious