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THE EARLY GRAVE OF A KING.

THE RIGHTEOUS IS TAKEN AWAY FROM THE EVIL TO COME. HE SHALL ENTER INTO PEACE: THEY SHALL REST IN THEIR BEDS, EACH ONE WALKING IN HIS UPRIGHTNESS."-ISA. lvii. 1, 2.

THE EARLY GRAVE OF A KING.

HE early grave is not confined to any

rank or

station. "Both the small and the great are

there" (Job iii. 19). While "behold the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, . . . the prophet and the prudent and the ancient ;"-He ever and anon rings the solemn warning-bell within palace halls" Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish" (Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4).

On these last words the verse which heads this chapter is a significant comment. Young King Josiah, who ascended the throne of Judah at the tender age of eight, is considered, by most reliable commentators, to be "the Righteous one" here specially referred to. In harmony with Isaiah's prophetic instinct and anticipation, the youthful monarch proved himself to be the most godly of his royal race. No nobler panegyric surely could have been written than this-"Like unto him there was no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with

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all his might, neither after him arose there any like him" (2 Kings xxiii. 25). At the age of sixteen he was brought, by means of the perusal of a copy of the Divine Law, under the fervid power of personal piety; and from that day onwards, during a memorable decade, he became priest and king in one. He commenced as an iconoclast, sweeping away from mountain and grove and valley every vestige and memorial of the idolatries sanctioned and encouraged by his apostate predecessors, and restored the purity of the Templeworship," repairing the breaches of the House." His acts of public devotion culminated in what may well be considered the eventful day of his reign, when, at the age of eighteen, he summoned his people to a great convocation in Jerusalem. In more than its former pomp and impressiveness, the old feast of the Passover was kept;—“ all Israel," as in former days, publicly renewing their covenant to their fathers' God. The longing prayer of the hidden 'seven thousand' seemed to have obtained a gracious answer- "Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?" (Ps. lxxxv. 6).

But, strange, mysterious dispensation! just when in the flower of his youth, and when his people were prospering in peace and piety under his benignant sceptre, he is brought wounded and bleeding from the battlefield at Hadadrimmon, whither he had gone to intercept the march of Pharaoh-nechoh, and he dies in his chariot ere he can reach his palace in Jerusalem.

It attests the depth and intensity of the national grief, that a funeral dirge, composed by Jeremiah, was, for many years after, sung on the spot where he received the fatal wound; and the best choristers of Israel tendered annually their services in rendering the mournful strains. We get but a snatch of these in the plaintive ejaculation of the prophet who wrote them—“Ah, my brother! . . . ah, lord! or, ah, his glory!" (Jer. xxii. 18). That it must, however, have been a scene and occasion of no common sorrow is farther evidenced when Zechariah uses it as a figure to describe the great future mourning and repentance of the Jews-"In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon" (Zech. xii. 11). "The righteous," says Isaiah (as by imparted foresight he sees the sudden eclipse of this bright star)—“The righteous (suddenly) perisheth," and "merciful men (or, as that word may be rendered-" the pious," men of godliness and kindness "-those who are 66 good," fearing God and loving man) "are taken away."

Josiah's case is in some respects singular. From his public and exalted position, and the manifestation of singular virtues, the mystery we have already dwelt upon in ordinary examples, of early removal, seems intensified. For Jehovah to suffer this "beauty of Israel to fall in high places," appears at first sight inconsistent alike with the Divine wisdom and power and love. It

looks almost like the frustration of God's plans and purposes, a failure in His sovereign designs. In other respects the mystery is the same, whatever the rank or condition of life may be. It is the architect just completing his work, when that work comes with a crash to the ground. It is the sculptor putting the finishingstrokes of his chisel on the virgin marble, when the toil of months or years strews the floor of his studio. It is the gardener bringing forth from his conservatory the choicest long-husbanded plants, in their freshness and beauty, to bask in early summer sun, when a frost or hailstorm unexpectedly comes, and in one night they have perished! It is the gourd of Jonah— the figure that has so often occurred to us—encircling some earth-bower of happiness; blighted, not, as before noted, when the noonday heat is over, or when the sun is westering, and when the shade could be dispensed with; but "in the morning,"--when most needed; when, drenched with the night-dews, its growth was stimulated and its permanency seemed ensured. apply to those in regal positions what we have already done to those in ordinary stations, we can understand the removal of the hoary-headed kings "who made Israel to sin,"-monarchs who had grown grey in iniquity. The land was well rid of such, for they lived only like the fabled upas-tree, to diffuse around them moral corruption and death. We can understand, too, the removal of the aged Israelitish patriarchs and rulers, veteran standard-bearers, who had fought their fight and fin

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