mingled in their train.

There might have been heavy forebodings and low, suppressed murmurs
among those who remembered the statutes of the Lord, and who recalled
his dealings with his people; but the multitude could rejoice in the
splendour and the festivities of the occasion; the court could exult in
the pomp and display; and wise politicians could talk of the benefits to
the two countries of speaking one language, springing from a common
origin, and preserving their own national integrity, and yet presenting
one united front to the common enemy. And Jehoshaphat may have hailed
this marriage as the master-stroke of his policy, while
religiously-disposed courtiers whispered that a scion of Israel,
transplanted to Judah and nurtured by Jehoshaphat, under the influences
of Zion, must indeed prove a plant of righteousness in this garden of
the Lord.

Did Jezebel fear this? Did this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman
feel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her
from the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her
father's house?

Jezebel was too strong in the consciousness of her own power, to fear
that her children would oppose her wishes or her plans. All experience
proves that the wife exerts a powerful influence upon the character of
her husband. Even where she has apparently little mental strength, she
may possess great moral power, for evil or for good. This influence
pervades her family, and is felt even while it is despised and
disavowed. When holy and pure, it is as reviving, strengthening,
invigorating as the pure breath of the morning. When it has its source
in a selfish, polluted heart, it comes like the midnight miasma or the