Assyria. commanded, A11ying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thonce; and let. them go e.nd dwell thllre, e.nd let him teach them the manner of the God of the le.nd." 'l'he priest whom the king sent to them seems to have been one of the exiled priests who had formerly had his head-quarters at Bethel. It is not said this priest took a copy of the Pentateuch with him; perhaps he trusted to his religious intelligence and 1,o his oral abilities. The fact of his being one of the exiled prlest.s, and being settled in Bethel, would imply that he was not a Levite, bnt rather one of the calf-worshipping priests; his instructions, therefore, would most likely not be very sound or useful. Now, the question is, why did this Assyrian king introduce, this roligion? Not because he or his people had any faith in it. " Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, anJ put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt," etc. (vers. 29- 81). Several of the gods of these people are here mentioned. "Succoth-uenoth." The meaning of this word, which is thought to be "tents or booths of daughters," migh• seem to point to the places where the Babylonians celebrated impure rites; but here it represents one of the deities. "Nergal" is said to have been worshipped under the form of a cock; and from Layard, in his work on Nineveh and Babylon, we find that a cock was sometimes associated with a priest on the Assyrian monuments. "Ashima," accord- ing to some, was worshipped under the form of a he-goat, bald to the very skin. "Nibhaz." This deity was represented in the figure of a dog. " Tartak." According to the rabbis, this deity was represented in the form of an ass. " .A.drammilech." This means the "fire-king," who was worshipped as a sun-god. " Anammelech," a. deity worshipped, some say in the form of a hare, and some say in the form of a. goat.1 These were the gods in which the king and the colonists seem to have bad faith, and not in the one true and living God. Why, then, did the king send this priest from Bethel to impart to them a knowledge of the God of Israel? Simply as a matter of selfi-sh policy. The attention that they paid to any representation that the priest made of the true God was partial, insincere, and selfish. "So they feared the Lord, and made nnto them- selves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, 11,fter the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. Unto this day they do after the former manners," etc. Here you have one of the million examples of that religion of policiJ that has abounded in all lands and times. In every page in history, nay, in every scene of life, we find religion taken up as a means to an end, rather than as the gra.nd end of being. Some use it as a means for secular advantage, others as a means for personal salvation-what is called the salvation of the soul. Rulers employ it as a means to govern the people, and priests employ it as a means to coerce men into ecclesiastical order or conventional morality. In such cn~es their own personal interests are by no means ignored. This is a prostitution of religion. True religion should ever be pursued as the supreme end of man. In it alone his highest obligations are fulfilled, his full powers employed, his true destiny realized. But, alas! everywhere we find it regarded as a subsidiary and partial element in man's calculations, experience, and life. What is here said applies to millions even in Christendom. "'l'hey feared the Lord, e.nd served their own gods." The religion of policy will never rescue mnn from the rapacious jaws of the lions of retribution. IV. 'l'HE THEISTIO HUNGER OF SOULS. All these men, both the colonists and the Israelites, would have their gods; a. god seemed to them as necessary almost as their life. "So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: os did their fathers, so do they unto this day." The same hun11:er for worship which the generations that preceded them possessed and developed had been transmitted to these their children as an inna.te force in their spiri- tual constitution. The religious element in man is not a passing sentiment, not a tra- ditional belief, not something superadded to his nature. It is the very core of his being, the substratum in which all his higher faculties inhere. Be who has this element in him (and who has not?) needs no argument to prove the existence of a God. If it be alive within him, all euch arguments are an impertinence. The existence of a t:lupreme Being is independent of all proof. It is written on the consciousness of human 1 filee Laye.rd on Nineveh and Babylon: and Rawlinson'•' Ancient Mon8JOhiea.' 852 THE SECOND TIOOK OF THE KINGS. [ou. xvrr. 1--41,
nature. Like the fact of our own bcin~, it is too near, too evident, too much a mntter of_ liying scl_f, for outward ar~ument to have any force. Faith in God springs from within. It 1s based on those immutable sentiments of the soul that outlive e.11 theories and defy all scapticism. To deny the existence of God is to offer violence to e.11 that is great and sacred in human nature.-D. T.