1852.

"Then I said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? And
the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day."

IT was the custom of heathen nations to offer their

sacrifices on the tops of high hills, and in many places

there are still found the remains of idol temples, which

were raised on the summits of lofty mountains, doubtless

that they might be seen from far, and that many might

come to worship, guiding their course by the sight of the

temple. There was also another reason, namely, they

fancied that they were nearer to their gods, whom they

believed to live in the sky, and that their prayers would

be more easily heard from places nearer to heaven. In

Numbers xxii. 41, we find, that Balak took Balaam up

to the high places of Baal (the false god of the Moab-

ites). "Solomon built an high place for Chemosh, the

abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jeru-

salem" (1 Kings xi. 7). Jeroboam made priests of the

high places out of the lowest of the people; and he

made a house of high places. When the good young

king Josiah began to restore the worship of the true

God, one of his first acts was to defile these high places,

to break them down, and to slay all the priests that were

there upon the altars (see 2 Kings xxiii. 8. 13. 20). In

VOL. XXXII.

B