present no difficulty; the central point of the kingdom had of
necessity also to become the central point of the worship. Even
Jerusalem and the house of Jehovah there might need some cleansing,
but it was clearly entitled to a preference over the obscure
local altars. It was the seat of all higher culture, Iying under
the prophets' eyes, much more readily accessible to light and
air, reform and control. It is also possible, moreover, that the
Canaanite origin of most of the Bamoth, which is not unknown, for
example, to Deuteronomy, may have helped to discredit them, while,
on the other hand, the founding of Jerusalem belonged to the
proudest memories of Israelite history, and the Ark, which had been
the origin of the temple there, had a certain right to be
considered the one genuine Mosaic sanctuary. /1/

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1. Luther in his address to the princes of Germany counsels
in the twentieth place that the field chapels and churches be destroyed,
as devices of the devil used by him to strengthen covetousness,
to set up a false and spurious faith, to weaken parochial churches,
to increase taverns and fornication, to squander money and labour
to no purpose, and merely to lead the poor people about by the nose.
(Niemeyer's Reprint, p. 54 )
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In the eighteenth year of Josiah, 601 B.C., the first heavy blow fell
upon the local sacrificial places. How vigorously the king set to
work, how new were the measures taken, and how deeply they cut,
can be learned from the narrative of 2Kings xxiii. Yet what a
vitality did the green trees upon the high mountains still
continue to show! Even now they were but polled, not uprooted.