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Notable Women of Olden Time by Anonymous
page 109 of 147 (74%)
royal family of Judah, although they were her own descendants! In her
ruthless ambition she destroyed her grandchildren, that she might
herself ascend the throne of Judah. She seems to have exulted in the
blood and carnage which opened her way to royal power. Unmoved by the
fate of her mother, with her sons and her brothers scarce cold in their
untimely graves, by her cruel treachery she consummated the destruction
of her family; and, stained with blood and polluted by crimes, she
seated herself upon the throne of David, and usurped the inheritance of
her children!

For eight years Athaliah held this usurped position. No compunctious
visitings of conscience seem to have haunted her. She felt neither pity
nor remorse. She may have well sustained her ill-gotten power while she
resided amidst the pomp and pageantry of royalty. Her resolute despotism
seems to have held her subjects in awe, and to have quelled them all
into subjection. She had herself wrought the fulfilment of the doom of
her race. As the last of Ahab's children, the sword of divine vengeance
was suspended over her head, and in the time appointed it fell. She was
to die the death of her house--a death of blood.

When the kings of Judah apostatized, while the individuals were
punished, the race was spared. God still remembered his covenant with
David; and, amid all the sin and desolation of Judah, the line of
hereditary descent was unbroken. The root remained, and some scion
worthy of the stock sprang from it.

When Athaliah was ingrafted on the stock of royal Judah, she so debased
it, that it seemed needful to purify it by cutting off all the branches
to the very root. Yet one was saved. And, as if to display his own power
and grace, God is at times pleased to select from the families the most
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