could prosper.

So, in addition to the thriving business of his old trade, he dealt,
also, in goat milk and wool and in the animals themselves.

Often, as he sat on the hillsides, in the cool of the sycamores, and
watched his flocks, his mind would turn to the things he saw and heard
in Jerusalem. He had heard there that Bethel, one of the sanctuaries
of Israel, was always filled with pilgrims at festival time--and he
determined upon a trip to Bethel, twenty-two miles north of Tekoah.

He returned greatly disheartened.

"Wealth and feasting saw I there," Amos told his mother, "and wine and
song, and altars reeking with blood of fatted lambs and oxen; but God
was not in the heart of the people of Israel."

His mother chided him gently. To say such things was blasphemy; for
sacrifices were demanded of all the people by the religious laws of
the state; and it was also commanded that a portion of the sacrifice
should be consumed by him who brought it--therefore the feasting. As
to the song and wine, did not the Sweet Singer say, "Serve the Lord
with gladness?"

Amos did not reply. He knew that his good-hearted mother had given
expression to the idea of God's worship as all the people, both of
Israel and of Judah, at that time, understood it. They brought the
sacrifices, as prescribed by the priests at the sanctuaries; a portion
of the slaughtered animal was given to God on the altar, and the
portion that was eaten by the sacrificer was looked upon as a meal--a