of light. salem.

There is the roar as of a lion from the caverns of JeruThere is an overthrow like that which overthrew the

Cities of the Plain. Zech. xiv. 5, 6.

It was on some high national solemnity that Uzziah—elated, according to the chronicler, by his successes, but certainly in conformity with the precedents of David and Solomon-entered the temple, clothed, according to Josephus, in priestly attire, with the intention of offering incense on the golden altar within the sacred building. Whether it was that, in the changes that had elapsed since the reign of Solomon, the custom had dropped, or whether Uzziah entered upon it in a haughty and irritating spirit, or whether the priestly order, since their accession of power through the influence of Jehoiada, claimed more than their predecessors had claimed in former times, it is said that the high priest Azariah, with eighty colleagues, positively forbade the king's entrance, on the ground that this was a privilege peculiar to the priestly office. 2 Chron. xxvi. 16. At this moment, according to Josephus, the shock of the earthquake broke upon the city. Its more distant effects were visible long afterward. A huge mass of the mountain on the south-east of Jerusalem rolled down to the spring of Enrogel, and blocked up the approaches of the valley of the Kedron and the royal gardens. Its immediate effect, if rightly reported, was still more striking. As has happened in like calamities, even in Jerusalem itself, the solid building of the temple rocked, its roof opened, the darkness of its inner recess was suddenly lighted up by the full blaze of the sun, and as the king looked up toward it, a leprous disfigurement mounted into his face, and rendered necessary that exclusion which, on the ground of his royal descent, had been doubtful. He retired at once from the temple, never again to enter it, and for the remainder of his life, as one of the accursed race, remained secluded within the public infirmary. His grave was apart from the public vaults, in the adjacent field.