from Israel shared in the restoration of Judah, but the bulk of them huve been merged in Oriental populations. The astounding fiction that the English n11tion is descended from the lost ten tribes contra.diets the very first principles ofI history, ethnology, and philology ; and even if it were true wonlJ. be worthless for the purposes which i:t is supposed to serve ; for the promises ma.de to the patriarchs a.nd their descendants are now transferred to the Christian Chlll'ch. Not Jews, whether known to be so or not, but Christians are heirs to the promise. If this remains doubtful, surely St. Paul ha.s written in vain. But of this more hereafter. A more profitable question remains: Was the disruption of the kingdom un• favoura.ble to the special mission of the Jewish Church .1 That mission was to keep religious truth a.fo-e in the world, to preserve the worship of the one true God, a.nd to prepare a field for the Gospel. E,·en if united Israel, had it remained true to its calling, would have fulfilled the Di,-ine purpose in the best way possible, yet it is not difficult to see how, under the conditions existing in the reign of Solomon, this purpose ma.y have been better accomplished by the kingJ.om of Judah than by the whole nation. Let us remember that the Canaanite was still in the land, in the northern tribes perhaps still in a majority; that there was extensive commerce between Tyre and the northern tribes, and that this promoted idolatry and its attendant corruptions; that Syria, conquered and garrisoned by David (2 Sam. viii. 6), had under Rezon begun to shake itself free (1 Kings xi. 28-25), and to produce a baneful effect upon the north of Israel. From all these evil influences the king• dom of Judah was very considerably protected by the barrier of the northern king- dom. Again, the expulsion of the priests and Levites from Israel, and their concentration in Judah, helped the cause of true religion in that kingdom. For, however much the hierarchy may have fallen below the level of their sacred office, they at least kept alive a knowledge of Jehovah and of His worship, wherever they were; and Judah now possessed the whole of this teaching, which before had been diffused through all the tribes. Above all, the kingdoms beingtwo instead of one, it was possible for one to be a lesson and a warning to the other. This was certainly the case latterly, to the great benefit of the true religion in Judah. V.' onld Hezekiah's reign have been as godly, would Manasseh have repented, would Josiah ha,e been able to carry out his pious reforms, had there not been before the eyes of all the awful judgment which had overtaken the sister kingdom of Israel? Add to this the notable fact that precisely the period when Judah has friendly relations with Israel, and the two kingdoms are to some extent reunited, is perhaps the very worst period both morally and politically in the h\Story of Judah. For all these reasons we may believe that, although the disruption ot the monarchy was an abandonment of the highest ideal, yet in God's Providence goo.' was brought out of evil; and, as in the earliest disruption of all, when the patriarch., broke their family bond by selling Joseph into Egypt, the wrong-doing of the few was tlll'ned into a blessing for many, including in the end even the wrong-doers themselves.
THE CAPTIVITY OF IBRAEL. After a duration of 255 years the kingdom of Israel came to an end in the reign of the nineteenth king, Hoshea. He was the last and the besti of that unholy and irregular line of monarchs. It might perhaps surprise us that the annihilating blow should fall in the reign of the best king. But "the best king of Israel" is an expression of diminished blame rather than of praise. " He diJ. evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him" (2 Kings xvii. 2). JOSHUA TO NEHEMIAH. xlv