of the Christian era, a youth of eighteen, the son of a miner who resided at Eisleben, in Saxony, was sent to the University of Erfuth. There, as he was one day turning over some of the books of the library, he opened a volume which he had never seen before, and which instantly awakened his interest and attention. It was the Bible. He read it, and his soul was filled with joy. He read it again and yet again, and the light which flashed from its pages penetrated his mind and his heart. From that moment Martin Luther entered on a new career, and subsequently became one of the most successful antagonists of Popery that Providence ever raised up.

IV. THE GREAT REFORMATION.

All that Josiah hitherto did was but the prelude to yet greater undertakings. Under his government a great reformation of religion took place, by which Judah and Jerusalem were raised to a higher moral position than they had stood in since the earlier days of Solomon. The temple was purged of every

76.

thing that defiled it, the idolatrous Priests that burnt incense in the high places were put down, and all the symbols of Heathenism were everywhere swept away.

The idolatry practised at this period was derived from the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Syrians, and the Phoenicians. Baal was

It is

the principal male divinity of the Phoenicians, and was worshipped chiefly at Tyre. generally believed that Baal was the sun, whilst Ashtoreth or Astarte, a female divinity, was the moon. The worship of the heavenly bodies was observed by all the Syro-Arabian nations from a very early period: whence the patriarch Job observes, "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the Judge: for I should have denied the God that is above." (Job xxxi. 26-28.) But this had the inhabitants of Judæa done, openly and for many years. The Kings of Judah had given horses to the sun, to draw the chariots which were used in the sacred processions, and throughout the land the worship

of Baal, and the hosts of heaven, had superseded the worship of the Lord Jehovah. The worship of Moloch also, the national deity of the Ammonites, had been established even by Solomon; (1 Kings xi. 7;) and at Tophet, in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, on the south-east of Jerusalem, that god was honoured by the most cruel and revolting rites. Children were slaughtered in the presence of the idol, and then cast into a fire; or, as some think, were thrown into a fire alive, whilst tabrets and drums were beaten to drown their cries, as is the custom in India, when widows are immolated on the funeral pile of their deceased husbands.

"First Moloch, horrid King besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through

fire

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshipp'd in Rabba, and her wat'ry plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the streams

Of utmost Arnon." *

And was it possible that such abominations "Paradise Lost," book i.

*

How-

could be practised by a people so highly fa-
voured as the inhabitants of Judæa! It was even
so: hence the Prophets frequently denounced
these crimes, and predicted the judgments
they were bringing on the land.* Idolatry is
"iniquity to be punished by the Judge;" for it
tramples on the rights of God, and demoralizes,
nay even brutalizes, the mind of man.
ever magnificent its temples, attractive its
ceremonies, and imposing its processions, it is,
and ever was, a grand delusion, founded upon
falsehood, and having no other tendency than
to corrupt the heart and to lead men astray
from the eternal Source of light, and life, and
love.

Josiah's opposition to it was magnanimous
and sincere. Though young, he was a truly
great King; for he was anxious to promote the
best interests of his subjects; and he knew that
whilst idolatry was tolerated in the land, the
land could enjoy no peace. All the abomina-

tions of the heathen he therefore swept away.
Baal, and Ashtoreth, and Moloch, and Chemosh,

* See Jeremiah vii. 31, 32; Ezekiel xvi. 20; xxiii. 37.

he spared not one of them. Their horses he took away, their chariots he burned with fire, and their images he brake in pieces, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.

Observe him! He has come to Bethel, and there he breaks down the altar made by Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Upwards of three hundred years before a Prophet had cried before that altar, "O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the Priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." (1 Kings xiii. 2.) And now this prophecy is literally accomplished. There stands the child, Josiah by name; and on that altar he burns the bones of the Priests, thus defiling it, and thus inflicting dishonour upon them. But he sees affixed to one of the sepulchres in the mount a title, and he asks, "What title is that that I see?" He is informed that it is the sepulchre of the man of God who predicted that these things should come to pass. "Let him alone," is therefore his command; "let no man move his bones." And the bones