14). Those who were first in rank were first in excess. People and king vied in debauchery (Hos. vii. 5); and the sottish king joined and encouraged the frce-thinkem and blasphemers of his court (Hos. vii. 3). The idolatrous priests loved and shared in the sins of the people (Hos. iv. 8, 9); nay, they seem to have set themselves to inter- cept those on either side of Jor~an, who would go to worship at Jerusalem, laying wait to murder them (Hos. v. 1; v1. 9). Corruption had spread through the whole land, even the places once sacred through God's revelations or other mercies to their fore- fathers-Bethel, Gilgal, Gilead, Mizpah, Shechem-were especial scenes of corruption or of sin (Hos. iv. 15; v. 1; vi. 8, 9, etc.). Every holy memory was effaced by present corruption. Could things be worse? There was one aggravation more. Remonstrance was useless (Hos. iv. 4); the knowledge of God was wilfully rejected (Hos. iv. 6); the people hated rebuke (Amos v. 10); the more they were called, the more they refused (Hos. xi. 2, 7); they forbade their prophets to prophesy (Amos ii, 12); and their false prophets bated Gori greatly (Hos. ix. 7, 9). All attempts to heal all this disease only showed its incurableness" (ibid., p. 3). ll. EXAMPLE OF TYRE. 'l'he prosperity of Tyre in the seventh and eighth centmiea before our era was extraordinary. She was mistress of her sister cities, Sidon and Gebal and Arvad; she ruled over a hundred colonies; on her island-rock she was safe from Assyria; the trade of the world was in her hands. "Situate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people for many isles" (Ezek. x.xvii, 3); full of wordly wisdom, the wisdom that gets increase of riches (Ezek. xxvili. 3-5); rich beyond all conception in precious metals, and in gems (Ezek. xxviii. 13), and in spices, and in broidercd work (Ezek. xxvii 22, 24), and in ivory and ebony (Ezek. xxvii. 15), and in all manner of merchandise; approved, respected, called "the renowned city, strong in the sea" (Ezek. xxvi. 17) ;-she had reached the acme of her glory, of her wealth, of her great- ness. But with what results to her moral tone and temper? Her heart was "lifted up" (Ezek. xxviiL 5); her pride became excessive; she said in her heart, "I am of perfect beauty" (Ezek. xxvii. 3}-" I am a god; I sit in the seat of God" (Ezek. xxviii. 2). "Iniquity" of every kind was found in her (Ezek. xxviii. 15)-envp (Ezek. x.xvi. 2), and "violence" (ver.16), and corrupt wisdom (ver. 17), and profanation of ;;anctua.ries (ver. 18), and even dishonesty in her traffic (ver. 18). And with iniquity, as usual, came ruin. Becauso of her pride, and her envy, and her violence, and her other iniquities, God brought a fire into her midst, which devoured her and reduced her to ashes (Ezek. xxvi. 18). The Babylonians were ma.de God's instrument to chastise her, and carry off her wealth, and break down her walls, and destroy her pleasant houses, and slay her people with the sword (Ezek. xxvi. 11, 12), and make her a byword among the nations (Ezek. xxvii 32)-a. desolation, a hissing, and a terror (ver. 36). III. EXAMPLE OF Ro:r,m. The ruin of Rome was undoubtedly wrought by that long career of unexampled military success which began with the closing years of the Second Punic War, and continued till she was the world's mistress. The wealth of Carthage, Macedonia, and Asia flowing into her coffers, destroyed the antique simplicity and aeverity of manners, stimulated ambition, provoked inordinate desire, and led to those terrific civil wars, in which the blood of the noblest and the bra.vest was shed like water, and" Rome fell ruined by her own strength" (Horace). It was not the influx of the barbarians that destroyed Rome; she fell from internal decay. The decline of Roman civilization dates from before the fall of the republic. It was then that population began to diminish, and the pure Roman blood to be mingled with the refuse of every nation. Slaves, freedmen, clients, glided into the tribes and gentes, and were followetl by absolute foreigners, Greeks and Egyptians and Syrians, effete races in a state both of physical and moral degradation. "The Orontes flowed into the Tiber." The very names of those in the highest position became grotesque and strange, such as Cicero and Cato would have pronounced manifestly barbarous. A decay of moral principles followed this admixture. Slavery prevailed, and slavery in ancient as in modern times was "a hot bod of vice and selfish indulgence, enervating the spirit and vital forces of mankind, discouraging legitimate marriage, a.ad enticing to promiscuous and barren concubinage. The fruit of such hateful unions, if fruit there were, engaged little regard from their selfish fathers, and both law and usage continued to sanction the exposure of infants, from which the female sex undoubtedly suffered most. The orr. xv. 1-38.J THE SJWOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 305
losses of Italy from this horrid practice were probably the greatest; but the provinces also lost proportionably; the imitation of Roman habits was rife on the remot.,st frontiers; the conquests of the empire were consoliclated by the attractions of Roman indulgence and_ sensuality; slavery threw discredit on all manual labour, and engen- dered e. false sentiment of honour, whicb constrained the poorer classes of freemen to dependence e.nd celibacy; vice and idleness went hand-in-hand, ancl combined to stunt the moral and physical growth of the Roman citizen, leaving his weak and morbid frame exposed in an unequal contest to the fatal influences of his climate" (Meri vale, • Roman Empire,' vol. viii. pp. 3ii3, 354). It was a race which had thus lost its stamina, and become effete and worn ont, that succumbed to barbarian inroads which, a few centuries earlier, it would have repulsed without any difficulty.