you take bribes from the wicked, and allow them to go on in their wickedness." After Amos had spoken these things to the people, Amaziah, who was the chief priest at the idol's temple in Bethel, sent to king Jeroboam, saying, Amos is speaking ill of thee. He says thou shalt be slain, and the people shall be carried away captive." "I was not always a prophet," Amos said in answer, "neither was I the son of a prophet; I was only a herdsman and a gatherer of wild figs. But as I was driving my flock, the Lord took me, and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to the children of Israel.' Hear then, Amaziah, what the Lord commands me to say to thee. Thou tellest me not to prophesy to the people when the Lord has sent me to prophesy to them. Now, therefore, the Lord will send His punishment upon thee also; thy wife shall go away from thy home and leave thee alone; thy sons and thy daughters shall be slain by the sword, and thou thyself shalt die in a heathen land.” In time other kings followed; but all were wicked kings; they served false gods who, they pretended, allowed them to do every thing that was wicked. These things the people of Israel did. They made high places in all their cities, and groves on their hills; and on the tops of the high places, and under the shade of every green tree, they burnt incense and offered sacrifices to idols. They kindled fires before their idols, and made their sons and their daughters go through the fire, and burn if, perchance, the idols' were pleased. Besides these things, they were wicked to one another, hating and killing one another, and robbing one another of houses, and lands, and gold. God waited long for them to turn from their sins. He sent famines and pestilence and war into their land to show them He was angry. He sent His prophets, too, to warn them. At last God drove the people of Israel out of Canaan, as He had driven out the heathen nations that lived there before them. So the kingdom of Israel was ended, after two hundred and fifty-four years from the time the ten tribes had chosen Jeroboam for their king. Nineteen kings had ruled over them during that time, all of whom were evil. The king of Assyria sent people from his own land to come and live in the cities of Israel, where the ten tribes had lived. They came and lived there, and took those cities for their own; and we do not know that the ten tribes ever returned. Indeed no history can tell us what ever afterward became of them. It may be they were slain; it may be they scattered themselves among other peoples, and so in time lost their names as Israelites. No one knows; but to this day they are spoken of in history as the Ten Lost Tribes. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Heart within, and God o'erhead! -Longfellow. But while all this was happening in the kingdom of Israel, what was happening in the kingdom of Judah? Let us see. We have not forgotten that Rehoboam, Solomon's son, was made king over the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and that he lived at Jerusalem, where was the temple that his father had built. We remember, too, that Jeroboam would not allow the people of the ten tribes to go to Jerusalem to worship at the temple, 200 |