outlived her husband by some thirteen yearn, and during that period was the evil genius of her two sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram. Ahazlah she completely perverted (eh. xxii. 62, 53). Over Jehoram she had less influence; but to her we must ascribe it that during his reign the Baal-worship continued in the capital (eh. x. 25-27) and in the country districts (eh, x. 21), though he himself took no part in it (eh. iii. 2). Athaliah, though without the strength of mind and will which characterized ber mother, resembled her, o.~ a faint replica resembles a strongly painted portrait. Married to Jehoram of Israel, a weak prince, she bad little difficulty in establishing her ascendancy over him, and becoming his chief adviser and counsellor (ver. 18). It was under her direction that Jehoram "made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto" (2 Chron. xxi. 11), or, in other words, established the Baal-worship in Judah and Jerusalem, and forced the inhabitants to embrace it. Over Ahaziah, her son, who was but two and twenty at his accession, her influence was naturally greater. He seems to have been a mere puppet in her hancls (2 Chron. xxii. 3-5). With a bold- ness worthy of her mother, Athaliah, on tbe death of her son Ahaziah, murdered all his half-brothers, and seized the sovereign power, which she held for six years-a unique feature in the history of the Jews. The Baal-worship was now made to supersede the worship of Jehovah in the temple on Mount Zion, and Mattan, the chief of Baal, was installed in the place previously occupied by the Aarouic high priest (2 Chron. n:iii. 17). Jehovah-worship was forbidden, persecuted, and probably ceased, except in secret; and the kingdom of Judah was, so far as appearances went, apostate, Such were the evils wrought by these two amLitious and wicked women. The history of the world, thougb. it can furnish no exact pamllels, has many cases more or less similar. Semiramis may be a myth, but Qneen Hatasu in Egypt, Queens Atossa. and Parysatis in Persia, Olympias in Greece, Mess"1lina and Popp::ea. Sabina. in Rome, Catharine de Medici, and Catherine Empress of Russia, in modern Europe, were women equally imperious, equally determined, and the prolific causes of equal mischief. It would seem that, in the female nature, where the natural impulses are so largely towards good, if these are perverted and Satan allowed the mastery, there is no longer a.ny let or restraint; the passions become ungovernable, the will as iron, the heart hard and unrelenting; evil has unresisted sway, and the result is something even more fearful and terrible than the wickedness of the worst man. Corru.ptio optimi pessima. Woman's function in the world is to be soft and tender, to smooth down man's roughnesses, to pacify and soothe and mitigate; 'if she abnegates these functions,- a.nd assumes the man's duties of ruling and repressing and bending to her will the stubborn necks of others, she runs counter to her proptor nature, and becomes a monstrosity. There is no saying to what lengths of prufli;:acy, cruelty, and other wickedness she ma.y not go. She is worse than a wild bt,ast, and may do infinitely more evil. S'he ma.y utterly corrupt a society, or she may deluge with blood a continent. She may ruin the country to which she belongs a.nd bring its fairest provinces to desolation. She may stir up hatreds, seL class against class, and cause a civil war that shail cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. 'l'be only security against ~II this mi~chief is for woman not to desert her sphere, but to remain within it, work- mg for God, and doing the good which she was designed to do.
HOMILIES BY VARlOUS AUTHORS. Vera. 1-6.-The Shunammite's land restored.' The Bible has a good deal to say about the land question. There is one memorable passage in Isaiah (v. 8): "Woe unto them that joiu house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth I" '!'here is another memorable passage in the Epistle of St. James: "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the enrs of the Lord God of Sabaoth." If such denunciations of oppression and wrong had been remembered, we should ha\·e had less of socialistic combinations and i1Jss of agrarian crime. In this passage we have- L A OOMMAND OBEYED. lmiha's command seemed a hard one. This woman of li8 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [oH. vm. 1-29,