THE

HISTORY OF HEZEKIAH.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF HEZEKIAH.

MEN seek out the source of a celebrated river at the expense of much danger and personal suffering. They ascend to the fountainhead, taste eagerly the gushing waters, and sketch the surrounding scenery. But it matters little, in most cases, whether a stream several thousand miles long breaks forth from a mountain or springs up in a valley. If its infant current is muddy or pure, scanty or copious, it may soon mingle with brooks of an opposite character and its original qualities disappear.

The desire is more rational to learn the origin of persons distinguished for genius, talents, virtues, or exploits to trace the sources from which they early derived those sentiments and prejudices that seldom fail to be conspicuous in after-life. It is not an idle inquiry, who were the fathers and

mothers of such men; for the Bible and observation both show that the character of children generally resembles that of their parents. Nor is it an idle inquiry, who were the companions of the early years of such men, and what examples of virtue or vice, so apt to be followed, were first set before their minds. If we would form a right estimate of character, we must also consider the state of the times in which men begin life. It was much harder for young Abijah to keep from idolatry, when his own father and nearly all Israel sacrificed to the golden calves, than for a child who often went up with his parents to worship at Jerusalem.

Hezekiah, whose character we shall attempt to sketch in this book, was the son of Ahaz king of Judah, and Abi the daughter of Zechariah. He was born about 750 years before Christ. The first notice we find of him in the Bible is in connection with the death and burial of his predecessor on the throne: 66 'And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem; but they brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel: and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead." 2 Chron. 28:27. Hezekiah was now twenty-five years old; and from his acts in the first year of his reign, it is manifest that he had already chosen the service of the God of Israel. By what process or by what instruments his character was formed we know not, but its existence is a striking

proof of the renewing and restraining influences of the divine Spirit. We can scarcely conceive of a situation more unfitted than that of Hezekiah for the cultivation of piety.

He was the son of a king and heir to a throne. In the most favored state of society and religious feeling, young men find it difficult to resist the temptations of wealth and power; but the inhabitants of Judah were now sunk deep in idolatry. Isaiah, who lived at this period, describes them as "a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers." Of the "princes" with whom Hezekiah, from his station, must have been in constant intercourse, the same prophet says, they "are rebellious and companions of thieves; every one loveth gifts and followeth after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them." Such was the prevailing licentiousness, that Isaiah cries out in tones of severe rebuke, "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah." And Micah, in bitter irony, says that if a man would prophesy "of wine and of strong drink," he would be a fit prophet for the nation. In the midst of such a court and people, young Hezekiah could find little else than incentives to laxity and vice.

But worse still, his father Ahaz was a gross idolater, outdoing in acts of impiety all that went

before him in Judah. "He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim. Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen."

In the valley of Hinnom, which lies south of Jerusalem, under mount Zion, the Jews, in the later periods of their kingdom, sacrificed their children to Moloch. A practice so abhorrent to parental feeling, one would think need never to be prohibited; but the inspired lawgiver Moses well knew how easily his countrymen would slide into the cruelties of idol-worship, and he forbade them to imitate the Canaanites, who "burnt even their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods." Moloch, to whom the Phenicians and Carthaginians also offered children in sacrifice, was represented by a statue of brass, with arms extended, and bending downwards towards the earth. children were placed on the arms of the god, from which they easily rolled off into a furnace glowing with fire, while drums were beaten to prevent their groans and cries from being heard.

The

Even at this day, heathen parents in some parts of the world put their infant offspring to death, to get rid of taking care of them. Children in Christian lands should be thankful that they were not born where such cruelties are practised, and do all