We are prone to think of the period to which we have been referring as
one of barbarism, and of the nations of Israel and Judah as ignorant and
uncivilized. Does it not seem as if the very heavens must have been
shrouded and the course of nature changed during the perpetration of
such bloody crimes? Does it not seem as if a natural darkness must have
overspread the land? And yet it was not so. The sun shone in his
brightness, the skies were as serene, the rain and the dew descended,
the vine and the olive ripened, and the flowers shed forth their
sweetness, and all the bustle and show of life went on, as at other
times. The people were oppressed, but the courts of Israel and Judah
were splendid and luxurious; and they doubtless boasted of their
advancing refinement, even when they were sinking into corruption and
depravity. It has ever been the policy of the monarchs who are guilty of
the most atrocious crimes, who shrink from no acts of cruelty, to
promote that despotism which may banish the remembrance of their
enormities, and to dazzle and blind the eyes of their people by the
glare and splendour which surrounds their court. And thus these guilty
monarchs, by the patronage of the licentious festivals of heathen
worship and the alluring rites of a corrupt religion, compelled their
people to sin. They drowned the voice of conscience and prevented all
reflection.

All history has shown us that, as nations have been verging to their
ruin, they have yielded themselves to criminal excess and sensual
indulgence; and the boasted periods of splendour and high refinement
have been but the preludes to long seasons of national calamity or
entire overthrow. Thus we may suppose it to have been with the ancient
descendants of Israel. The courts were splendid and all the arts were
patronized, while the thin veil of refinement was thrown over deeply
corrupt manners. The people, departing from a holy faith, were sinking