zeal for God, their confidence in his power, and their strict obedience to his precepts. The war against the heathen of the land was to be a war of extermination; they were not to be allowed to live. If they fled, as there are evidences that, in the time of Joshua, many of them did, and formed colonies in other lands, they of course were free, but neither they nor their religion were to be allowed to exist any longer in that land. The Israelites had every proper inducement to carry out the purposes of God. They had his own oft-repeated command; they had the promises of his power and presence, and the recollection of the wonders he had already performed for them in driving out so many of the people: then there were the repeated charges of their former and honored leaders, Moses and Joshua; their own covenant; the value of the territory yet occupied by the heathen; and the warnings they had received of the evils that would follow, if they did not fully execute the divine purpose. These at first seemed to influence them; and Judah, the most powerful, and now, by divine revelation, recognized as the leading tribe, with Simeon, made some remarkable conquests in their own allotment; and so, indeed, did most of the other tribes: but, instead of pushing on their conquests until the whole land was cleared, both of idols and idolaters, as both duty and interest dictated, it is recorded to their dishonor, that their efforts were relaxed, their courage and confidence in God failed them, and they timidly contented themselves with a partial possession of the land. In some cases they cowered before the enemy, and, in others, they so far prevailed as to exact a tribute. Thus, neither Judah nor Benjamin had full possession of Jerusalem; the Jebusites were there: the Philistines remained on the coast of Judah and Dan; and the Sidonians, on that of Asher; and many Canaanites were left in Lebanon, and in other parts of the land; while all continued to increase in strength and power.

God regarded the timid policy of his people, as an infraction of their covenant, and sent an angel to them as they assembled at Shilo, where the tabernacle was set up, on one of their great religious festivals, and he told them that they had done evil against God, and against themselves, in coming to

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terms with any of the inhabitants of the land; that their duty was to have destroyed every vestige of idolatry; that their conquests would now cease, as God would not further assist them; and that the idolaters and their gods would be a great snare to them in days to come. The people wept bitterly at this intelligence; they saw their error, and their want of faith in God; they perceived at once the incalculable injury inflicted on themselves and their children by their cowardice and disobedience; and so deep was their distress, that the place was called “Bochim," or the weepers. Oh, the sorrows that follow irresolution in the service of God! The people offered sacrifices unto the Lord, as an atonement for their sin.

The penitence of the Israelites appears to have been sincere; but obedience is better than repentance, especially, as in this case, when it came too late to free them from the evil consequences of their sin. The nation apparently was preserved from open idolatry for a number of years after Joshua's death; but, as the next generation grew up, the worst effects were experienced. From living with the heathen, in a state of tranquility, they and their children proceeded to intercourse and intimacy; intermarriages followed, and idolatry, with all its pollutions, until the people, in many parts at least, became as vile as the heathen themselves. Probably, as directed in the law, the elders and parents sought to inculcate on their children their duties to God, and to lead them to Shilo to worship; but their commingling with the heathen rendered all the means used for their preservation abortive. So do "evil communications corrupt good manners."

About twenty years after the death of Joshua, a species of idolatry, mingled with the worship of the true God, was adopted in a private family in Ephraim. A section of the Danites, driven from their inheritance by the Amorites who remained in that region, travelled northward, to seize on a territory which their spies reported as feebly guarded, and in their march, they plundered this family of its idols, and induced the Levite who had been their priest to go with them; and there, in their new possession at the risings of Jordan, they set up this worship, and had, as is supposed by some, a grandson of Moses, and his descen

dants, as their priests, until the time of their captivity. So prone were they to idol worship!

About the same period, that dreadful example of corrupt and mad debauchery, such as is fostered and engendered by idolatry, and which is recorded in the last three chapters in the book of Judges, occurred in Gibeah, a small town, a little north of Jerusalem, and of the tribe of Benjamin. It is too revolting and vile to be repeated. Suffice it to say, that the protection afforded to the young men who had been guilty of a licentious outrage on a passing stranger, by the whole tribe of Benjamin, was an indication of criminal connivance at their dreadful abominations. This so exasperated the other tribes, who were summoned by the Levite sending the body of his abused and murdered concubine, by piece-meal, to every tribe in Israel, that, though they suffered severely by the onslaught of the Benjamites, so as to lose at least 40,000 men, they nearly extirpated the whole tribe, only 600 out of 30,000, besides their families, escaping from slaughter. So disastrous were the consequences of this sin!

This display of abhorrence of wrong did not check the downward progress of the people. Corruption, and pollution, and the vices of idolatry, rapidly spread their influence throughout the land. The people forsook the Lord, and went after other gods: they served Baal and Astaroth, gods analagous to the Jupiter and Venus of the Greeks, and there worshipped as the sun and moon, with obscene and abominable rites. To chastize them, they were delivered of God into the hands of Chushan-rithashaim, the warlike king of Mesopatamia, who subdued them, and compelled them to pay tribute. The people were

thus

awakened to a sense of their folly, and, when they cried unto the Lord, he raised up, as their deliverer, Othniel, a relation of the distinguished Caleb. He was the first of that extraordinary class of men called judges, who, led by a special impulse from God, ruled and guided the people. By his means they were delivered, after eight years servitude, and, under his presidency, the land had rest forty years.

Again they relapsed into idolatry, and its attendant pollutions, and Eglon, king of the Moabites, came upon them,

and, after subduing them, fortified the old site of Jericho. For eighteen years he dwelt in the midst of them. They again, as their fathers had done, cried unto God, and, by the hand of Ehud, a Benjamite, he was privately killed, and his people, as they sought to pass the ford of Jordan, were destroyed. The land then had a long interval of tranquility, viz., eighty years. Shangar, of the tribe of Judah, or Dan, in his time repressed a party of the Philistines, and with an ox goad, a formidable weapon, slew 600 of them. So did God protect and deliver a repentant people!

A new generation appeared, and they fell into the vices of their heathen neighbours. Their next conqueror was from the north of the land. Jabin, king of Hazor, a successor of a king of that name, whom Joshua had overcome, was now become strong, and he subdued and oppressed the people for twenty years. In this instance a woman was their deliverer, Deborah, a prophetess, residing in mount Ephraim, to whom the people resorted for counsel in their difficulties. She, inspired of God, sent to Barak, who dwelt in the Kadesh, north of the sea of Galilee, that he should collect 10,000 men of war from Naphtali and Zebulun to mount Tabor. To inspirit him, she went with him. Sisera, the captain of Jabin's forces, came against him, with a great and powerful army, and pitched his camp near the foot of the mountain, in the plain of Jezreel. Barak went down upon his adversary, and, though he had 9,000 chariots of iron, and an immense force, God filled them all with terror, and they were put to confusion and the sword. Josephus says, that a great storm of rain and hail disabled the Canaanites. Sisera fled away on foot, and alone, and was killed by a woman, Jael, a Kenite, whose family had migrated thither, in whose tent he had taken shelter. Thus ended this cruel bondage.

This wonderful deliverance was celebrated by Deborah in a triumphant song, which constitutes the fifth chapter of the book of Judges, and of which it is said, that, "considered as a specimen of lyric composition, it may challenge comparison with the finest effusions of the classic muse in any age or country." Among other representations, it presents an affecting view of the previous degradation and insecurity of the people, a glow

ing description of the battle, and the vile manners of the Canaanites.

After this time, the land had rest forty years; but as the subsequent race sunk into their fathers' sins, they were exposed for seven years to a heavy and exhausting visitation. The Midianites, Amalekites, and other wandering tribes of the east, races very similar to the Bedouin Arabs of the present day, poured in upon them with their camels and horses, in great multitudes. They pitched their tents among them, devoured their provisions and their cattle; so that, from the east, where they entered, to the borders of the great sea on the west, the whole breadth of the land, they spread famine, desolation, and death. The Israelites, unable to resist their lawless depredations, were driven to secrete themselves in dens and caves of the mountains, and in their strongholds. This was the severest chastisement the central and southern parts of the land had ever experienced. They were plundered and destroyed daily. When they looked up to God in their extremity, a prophet was sent amongst them, to instruct them in their duty, and to rebuke them for their ingratitude, disobedience, and idolatry, and, in process of time, a deliverer was raised up from an humble and obscure family of the tribe of Manasseh. Gideon, of Ophrah, about sixteen miles north of Jericho, was thrashing his wheat, not in the usual thrashing floor, nor in the common way, with the treading of oxen, but with a stick, in a wine press, from poverty, and for fear of the Midianites, and an angel appeared to him, and hailed him as blessed of God, and the deliverer of his people; but Gideon complained that God, who had brought them out of Egypt, had forsaken them, and delivered them into the hand of the Midianites, and moreover said, “My family is poor in Manasseh, how can I save Israel?" He perceived, by a sign, that it was an angel who spoke to him. Directed and encouraged by him, and assisted by his father's servant, in that night he destroyed the altar of Baal, and cut down the grove that was by it, belonging to his father, and building an altar to the Lord, put a suitable sacrifice upon it. His father, struck with the boldness of the deed, protected him against the idolaters of the place, who called for his death on the coming day, and

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he said, if any avenged Baal, it should be the god himself; and hence he called his name Jerubaal, or "let Baal plead."

The devouring foe, like locusts, were now encamped in the plain of Jezreel, and Gideon, inspired of God, summoned the tribe of Manasseh, and the northern tribes, who were yet unbroken by the enemy, and soon had an army of 32,000 men. Sign after sign was given him, in order to assure him of the divine protection; and thus he approached the host of Midian. That it might clearly appear that God was their deliverer, Gideon, instructed from heaven, proclaimed that all who were fearful, or not disposed to fight, were at liberty to retire, and 22,000 left the ranks. Another reduction was made; so that he was left with only 300 men against a countless multitude He then sent out to Ephraim, that they should hasten to the plains of Jordan, to intercept their retreat, and once more encouraged of God, by the dream of a Midianite, which he heard recited when by night he went near their camp, he divided his little force into three sections, of 100 each. Each man took a lamp, an empty pitcher, and a trumpet, and posting themselves on the eminences round the enemies' camp, in the stillness of the night, they all at once blew their trumpets, broke their pitchers, and raised a loud shout. This very naturally aroused the Midianites from their slumbers, who seeing the numerous lights around them, and hearing their warcry, were taken with a panic, and Josephus says they fell on each other and at length took to flight. Gideon and his small army pursued them, and those who had been dismissed with the Ephraimites and others, fell on them, and in their attempts to cross the Jordan, slew immense multitudes, and Oreb and Zeeb, princes of Midian.

He

Gideon pursued the Midianites who had escaped, and surprized them, when they had passed the borders of Israel, and thought themselves secure. slew their kings, Zeba and Zalmunna; and as he returned, he severely chastized the inhabitants of Penuel and Succoth, of the tribe of Gad, who had cruelly refused sustenance to his fainting soldiers in their pursuit of a common foe. He also pacified the Ephraimites who envied him his success. With the utmost magnanimity also he

refused to be made a king, now for the first time proposed in Israel, reminding the people that God was their king. He became their judge, and preserved the land for forty years. Unadvisedly, he introduced an unwarranted worship in his native city, which, in time, degenerated into idolatry. After his death, the Shechemites made Abimeleck, the least worthy of his sons, their sovereign. He began like a despot, and murdered all his father's sons, seventy in number, except Jotham, the youngest, who escaped. But though he had all the attributes of a tyrant, he does not appear to have been generally recognized, and after a troubled course of about three years, he came to an inglorious end. Cruelty and ambition often lead to misery and contempt! Jotham posted on an eminence had rebuked the people of Shechem, when assembled together, in the oldest, and one of the most beautiful parables in existence.

It was during the period we have just passed over, it is supposed, that the incidents occured which are narrated in the book of Ruth. A family consisting of four persons, the parents and two sons, emigrated from Bethlehem in Judah, to the land of Moab, in consequence of the famine occasioned by the incursions of the Midianites. There, the two young men married two of the daughters of Moab: but about ten years after the migration, the

father and his two sons died, leaving the mother and her daughters-in-law, widows. The mother being destitute and in a strange land, and hearing that order was restored in Judah, determined to return to her own inheritance, which had been sold, probably for a trifle in those troublous times. On her return, one of her daughters-inlaw, Ruth, filled with regard for her, and with a desire to serve the true God, resolved to go with her, and said, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." They came to Bethlehem ; and Ruth, instructed of her mother, first gleaned in the fields of Boaz, a rich kinsman, and afterwards claimed the conjugal relation, according to the custom of the people. Boaz, who was pious and prudent as well as wealthy, informed her that there was a nearer kinsman than himself, but if the nearer kinsman would not discharge his obligations, he promised they should not be overlooked. Accordingly, a court was called, and Boaz, by the defaulter of the nearer kinsman, redeemed her inheritance, and took Ruth to be his wife, amid the blessings of a large assembly of people. From this union sprung the family of David, "of whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." So accurately is the genealogy of the great Redeemer marked in the inspired volume!

VII. Agrippa, who was the subject of our last communication, and who is generally styled Agrippa the great, had several children. "Thus died king Agrippa," writes Josephus, Antiq. lib. xix. c. 9, leaving behind him one son named Agrippa, then seventeen years of age; and three daughters, Bernice, who was married to Herod, her father's brother, being sixteen years of age; Mariamne, and Drusilla, who were unmarried. The former was ten years old, and Drusilla six. Drusilla was contracted to Epiphanes, son of Antiochus king of Commagene." Of these four, three, namely, Agrippa, Bernice and Drusilla,

are mentioned in the New Testament: to these our attention will be confined.

The first mention that is made of Agrippa, for distinction's sake commonly called Agrippa the younger, occurs Acts xxv. 13; where St. Luke relates, that, "After certain days, king Agrippa came to Cæsarea, to salute Festus." The sacred historian calls him king, as Josephus also very frequently does: but he does not suppose

* In the last article, page 338, col. 1, for, "Thus he restored to him the right of consanguinity," read, "This he restored to him by right of consanguinity."

him to be king of Judea, for all the judicial proceedings in that country relating to Paul were transacted before Felix, and his successor, Festus. Besides he says here, that "Agrippa came to Cæsarea to salute Festus," that is, to pay his respects to him, and to compliment him upon his arrival in the province.

When his father died, Claudius intended at first to have put him immediately in possession of his father's dominions; but as Agrippa was then but seventeen years old, the emperor was persuaded to alter his mind, and appoint Cuspius Fadus prefect of Judea and the whole kingdom. Agrippa was, therefore, disappointed of his father's kingdom; he had, by this time, however, obtained considerable territories. But on the death of Herod, brother of king Agrippa the great, in the eighth year of the reign of Claudius, A.D. 49, this emperor gave his, that is, Herod's, government, to Agrippa the younger, that is, the Agrippa of whom we are now speaking, and who was at this time twenty-two years of age. Antiq. lib. xx. c. 5. "When Claudius had completed the twelfth year of his reign, Agrippa being twenty-six years old, he gave him the tetrarchy of Philip, and Batanea, adding also Trachonitis with Abila. This had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias. But he took away from him Chalcis, after he had governed it four years." This passage occurs in the Antiq. lib. xx. c. 7. In the Wars, lib. ii. c. 12, Josephus writes in the following manner:-" After this, Claudius sent Felix, the son of Pallas, to be procurator of Galilee, Samaria, and Peræa; and promoted Agrippa from Chalcis to a greater kingdom, giving to him the tetrarchy which had been Philip's. (This was Batanea, Gaulanitis, and Trachonitis.) And he added moreover the kingdom of Lysanias, and the province which had belonged to Varus" Nero, the successor of Claudius, in the first year of his reign, A.D. 54, gave Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, ordering Tiberias and Taricheas to be subject to him. He gave him also Julias, a city of Peræa, and fourteen towns in its vicinity. Antiq. lib. xx. c. 8. The evangelist Luke is, therefore, right in giving to Agrippa the title of king at this time.

This is the Agrippa before whom

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Paul appeared, and whose name frequently occurs in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters of the Acts of the apostles. It may not be improper to remark what the reader has doubtless observed, that when Paul was in the presence of Agrippa, he addressed himself to him as a Jew. Acts xxvi. 2, 3, 27, "I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee; especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the

Jews. *

King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." From what has been said relating to Herod Agrippa, it is evident that he was a zealous Jew, or at least appeared so at Jerusalem, and had educated all his children in the Jewish religion. This Agrippa, his son, undoubtedly maintained the same profession; and now he had, by the permission of the emperor, the direction of the sacred treasury, the government of the temple, and the right of nominating the high priests. That St. Paul, therefore, told Agrippa, that he "knew him to be expert in all customs and questions which were among the Jews," is nothing surprizing.

VIII. Bernice, whose name occurs twice in the narrative of St. Luke, Acts XXV. 13, and xxvi. 30, was a lady well known in those times. There are several particulars respecting her related by Josephus, as well as other writers. But as St. Luke says nothing of her, except that she visited Festus with Agrippa, and it has been already shewn who she was, namely, the daughter of Herod Agrippa, and the sister of Agrippa the younger, it is not requisite for us to take further notice

of her.

IX. Of Drusilla, a notice somewhat more extended will be necessary. While Paul was at Cæsarea, the sacred historian says, "And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ." Acts xxiv. 24. We have already shewn that this Drusilla was the youngest daughter of king Agrippa the great. The following account of her marriage with Felix, A.D. 52, or 53, appears in the Antiq. lib. xx. c. vii. Agrippa having received this present from Claudius, gave his sister Drusilla