Expecting the destruction of the city by earthquake or flame from heaven, he had gone out from it and erected a booth or shelter, to screen his head from the sun; and he is there when he hears of the respite granted to the city. A fiercer fire than the sun's is now kindled in his heart, and, mingling with the heat which the booth imperfectly alleviates, it drives him almost to frenzy. He assails Omnipotence with savage irony. In answer, God prepares a large gourd, or species of palm, which springs up like an exhalation and steeps his head with grateful coolness. Jonah is glad of it; it somewhat mollifies his indignant feelings, and under its shadow he sinks into repose. He awakes; the morning has risen like a furnace, but the gourd is withered; a worm has destroyed it, its cool shade is gone, and the arid leaves seem of fire, as they bend above his head, in a vehement but dry east wind which has sprung up. He faints, partly in pain, and partly in sorrow because of the green and beautiful plant, and renews, in bitter accents, his yesterday's cry :

It were better for me to die than to live." Slowly there drop down upon him from heaven the words, "Dost thou well to be angry for the gourd ?" and he answers, in the quick accents of despite and fury, "I do well to be angry, even unto death. Be angry, yea, I could die for my gourd." "Then, saith the Lord, thou hast had pity on the plant, for which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow, which in a night rose, and in a night perished (which was not thine, and which only for a few hours. was with thee). And why should not I have mercy on that great city, Nineveh, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and left hand (innocent as the gourd itself!), and also much cattle (poor dumb ones!)?" And there, to the imagination, still sits the stunned and downcast prophet, the great city in sight, and shining in the sun, the low of hundreds of cattle in his ears, the bitter wind in his eyes and in his hair, disappointment and chagrin in his heart, and, hanging over his naked head, the frag

ments of the withered plant. Who would care to go and to sit down along with him?

And yet not a few have gone and sat beside Jonah under that shade of tattered fire. The fierce, hopeless infidel, who would, like Cain, kill his brother because he cannot comprehend his God; the dogmatist, who has learned his "lesson of despair" so thoroughly that the ease with which he recites it seems a voucher for its truth; the gloomy Christian, who lingers many a needless hour around the skirts of Sinai, instead of seeing its summits sinking afar off in the distance; the victim of vanity and disappointment, who has confounded his voice and identified its rejection with the voice and the rejection of God; the misanthrope, who says, "Would that all men were liars!" and the fanatic, who grieves that the heavens do not respond to his vindictive feelings, and leave him and his party standing alone in the solitude which the race has left,—such, and others, have partaken of the momentary madness and shared in the dreary shelter of the prophet.

He, we trust, arose from under the gourd, and humbled, melted, instructed, resumed the grand functions of his office. It is of comparatively little moment whether he did or not, as the principles inscribed on his prophecy remain in any case the same. These are, first, to fly from duty is to fly to danger; secondly, deliverance from danger often conducts to new and tenfold perils and involves tenfold responsibilities; thirdly, a duty delayed is a duty doubled; fourthly, the one voice of an earnest man is a match for millions; fifthly, an error in the truest prophet can degrade his character and cast a shade of doubt upon his name; and sixthly, God would rather lower the good report of any his messengers than endanger one syllable of his own recorded name "The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and slow to anger."

XXVII.

UZZIA H.

ZZIAH was only sixteen years old when placed upon the throne. He must have possessed good counselors, for he grew up to be a man of great qualities, and was

a wise and good ruler. He sought the Lord and listened to the prophets, and while he did this he prospered. The templeworship was restored and the building beautified. He also rebuilt the broken walls of Jerusalem, and erected towers at the corners, strongly fortified. Uzziah also encouraged agriculture. Husbandmen and vine-dressers, green fields and flocks of cattle, were seen over the land of Judah. Wells were dug in deserts; towers built for the protection of his borders; and once more peace and plenty comforted the hearts of the sons of Judah.

His army was in excellent discipline, and numbered three hundred and seven thousand five hundred men. Over these were set two thousand six hundred captains. They were all armed with shields, spears, helmets, habergeons, bows and slings. With this army, the king of Judah set out to attack the old enemies of his people, the Philistines. The cities of Gath, Jabneh and Ashdod were destroyed and the people thoroughly humbled. Cities were built to keep them in submission.

Uzziah also defeated the Arabians, and recovered the port of Elah, on the Red Sea. His kingdom was now in the most flourishing condition. The Ammonites, fearing him, brought in great gifts. His power and wisdom spread abroad as far as

Egypt, and he was feared and held in reverence by his people and the nations around. Isaiah, the great prophet, was then in Jerusalem, and said to the people, "Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; for out of Zion shall go forth the law."

In the prosperity of the reign of Uzziah there were some dark spots, of which the historical books report hardly anything, but of which the writings of the contemporary prophets are full, and which led the way to the rapid decline of the next period. There was the tremendous, ever-memorable visitation of locusts. It came, like all such visitations, in the season of unusual drought -a drought which passed over the country like flames of fire. The locusts came from the north. The brightness of the Eastern sky was suddenly darkened as if by thick clouds on the mountaintops. They moved like a gigantic army; they all seemed to be impelled by one mind, as if acting under one word of command; they flew as if on horses and chariots from hill to hill; never breaking their ranks, they climbed over the walls of cities into the windows of houses. The purple vine, the green fig tree, the gray olive, the scarlet pomegranate, the golden corn, the waving palm, the fragrant citron, vanished before them, and the trunks and branches were left bare and white by their devouring teeth. What had been but a few moments before like the garden of Eden was turned into a desolate wilderness. Joel i. 12, 18. The herds of cattle and flocks of sheep so dear to the shepherds of Judah, the husbandmen so dear to King Uzziah, were reduced to starvation. The flour and oil for the "meat-offerings" failed; even the temple lost its accustomed sacrifices. It was a calamity so great that it seemed as though none could be greater. It "had not been in their days, nor in the days of their fathers;" "there had never been the like, neither would there be any more after it, even to the years of many generations."

It must have been in the kingdom of Judah what the drought of Ahab's reign had been in the kingdom of Israel. It was a

day of divine judgment, a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. The harsh blast of the consecrated ram's horn called an assembly for an extraordinary fast. Joel ii. 1. Not a soul was to be absent. Like the fiery cross, it convened old and young, men and women, mothers with infants. at their breast, the bridegroom and the bride on their bridal day. All were there, stretched in front of the altar. The altar itself presented the dreariest of all sights-a hearth without its sacred fire, a table spread without its sacred feast. The priestly caste, instead of gathering as usual upon its steps and its platform, were driven, as it were, to the farther space; they turned their backs to the dead altar, and lay prostrate, gazing toward the invisible Presence within the sanctuary. Instead of the hymns and music which, since the time of David, had entered into their prayers, there was nothing heard but the passionate sobs and the loud dissonant howls such as only an Eastern hierarchy could utter. Instead of the mass of white mantles which they usually presented, they were wrapt in black goat's-hair sackcloth, twisted round them not with the brilliant sashes of the priestly attire, but with a rough girdle of the same texture, which they never unbound night or day. Joel i. 13. What they wore of their common dress was rent asunder or cast off. With bare breasts they waved their black drapery toward the temple, and shrieked aloud, "Spare thy people, O Lord!”

There was yet another calamity which left a deeper impression on the contemporary writers and on later tradition-" the earthquake," as it was emphatically called. Amos i. 1. The whole prophetic imagery of the time is colored by the anticipations or recollections of this memorable event. Mountains and valleys are cleft asunder and melt as in a furnace (Mic. i. 4); the earth heaving like the rising waters of the Nile; the sea bursting over the land; the ground shaking and sliding as, with a succession of shocks, its solid framework reels to and fro like a drunkard. The day is overclouded by thick darkness, without a glimmering