LESSON X.

THE CAPTIVITY.

"Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the
whole earth?"--_Larn._ ii. 15.


Manasseh's son, Amon, undid all the reformation of his latter years, and
brought back idolatry; and indeed, the whole Jewish people had become so
corrupt, that even when Amon was murdered in 642, after only reigning
two years, and better days came back with the good Josiah, it was with
almost all of them only a change of the outside, and not of the heart.
Josiah was but eight years old when he came to the throne, and at
sixteen he began to rule, seeking the Lord earnestly with his whole
heart, as David and Hezekiah alone had done before him. One of his first
acts was to purify the Temple, and in so doing, the book of the Law
of Moses was found, cast aside, and forgotten by all. Josiah bade
the scribes read it aloud, and then for the first time he heard what
blessings Judah had forfeited, what curses she had deserved, and how
black was her disobedience in the sight of God. Well might he rend his
clothes, weep aloud, and send to the prophetess Huldah, to ask whether
the anger of the Lord could yet be turned aside. She made answer by
the word of the God of Justice, that the doom must come on the guilty
nation, but that in His mercy, He would spare Josiah the sight of the
ruin, and that he should be gathered into his grave in peace; and at the
same time Zephaniah likewise spoke of judgment, and Jeremiah, the priest
of Anathoth, was foretelling that treacherous Judah should soon suffer
like backsliding Israel. Yet even this hopeless future did not daunt