Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-05

was born during Manasseh's reign. Man.
asseh has been compared to Julian the
Apostate, and the comparison is an apt one.
His father was the good King Hezek1ah,
| who had Isaiah for his father confessor. He
may have been brought up, like Julian,
with unwlse strictness. No doubt he was
| disgusted with the substitution of cere-
moniai for righteousness, which he must
have seen about him. Anyhow, he had SO
much religion, good or bad, in his boyhood
| that when he came to be his own master he
| cast it off,
He not only cast it off, but he pursued it
with bitter hatred. He invited into his
kindom all the paganisms, and necromancies
and superstitions of all the surrounding ma
tlons. In the valley of Hinnom, in place
called Tophet, close by the Jerusalem walls,
was brazen image of Moloch a relic OF the
days of Ahab This was repaired, and the
furnace at its feet was again lighted for
human sacrifice. On the flat housetops of
the city a host of little affairs smoked with
incense In alteration of the stars of heaven.
At the street corners, in brick ovens, women
baked cakes in honor of the unclean goddess
Astarte. The temple worship stopped: The
sacred vessels were used in the service OF
Baal. The great altar was broken down and
two new ones built, one to the sun and the
other to the moon. The name Of Jehovah
was erased from all inscriptions. The Holy
OF Holes became a lumber room.
A Season of Persecution.
Manasseh began a general persecution.
Day by day the prophets of the old religion
were hunted down and ordered off to death.
The mobiles who held to the old ways were
hauled down from the rocky crags which
stood about the city. AT last came Esar-
Haddon with his army of Assyrians, fresh
from battering down Samaria, and they took
Manasseh captive, and carried him to Baby
lon. And so the reign of terror ended.
Through all this had Zephaniah lived; amid
such scenes had he grown up. Even when
he wrote and preached, there had as yet
been repentance. The priests still said
their prayers to Baal. The affairs smoked
on all the housetops.
In such an age, in such land, Zephaniah
preached his sermon.
The occasion of the sermon seems to have
been the approach of some great danger.
Away off on. the horizon they saw the
armies of some fierce invader. Who it was
nobody knows. Perhaps it was the Scyth-
ians. Out from behind that long barrier of
mountains, Himalaya and Caucasus, which
parted the civilized world of that day from
the uncivilized, advanced the Scythians, the
first of the fierce Northern tribes to march
upon the South, the precursors of the Gauls
and Goths and Huns and Vandals,
Who Invaded Rome.
Down they came, urging their swift
horses along the Syrian sea coast, bound for
Egypt, and being bought off by the Egypt
tian King, rode back again beyond the
mountains Perhaps 1t was the Chaldeans,
about this time throwing off the Assyrian
yoke, destroying Nineveh and threatening
= IL oLohl hl.r, &h1 Nha1I
In them, anyhow, Zephaniah's preaching
found fulfllment.
Scythian or Chaldean, the dust of their
armies was seen on the far horizon, and
everybody was afraid. Then Zephaniah |
preached. That was good time to preach. |
When all goes well people sometimes seem |
to miss the meaning of life altogether. The |
small obscures the great. The transitory is |
taken to be of more interest and conse-
quence than the eternal. But let trouble |
come, let the sky get black overhead, and |
the future blacker yet along the path; let |
pain come, and failure and distress, and |
let death come. And people who |
have never thought before, begin to think. |
1t was only when the famine touched him
that the prodigal son looked back toward |
home This is the benediction of disaster,
hat it makes people think. Zephaniah |
preached in good time.
What Zephaniah Had to Say.
Zephaniah's sermon, as it is preserved for
is in his book, is dreadful sort Of sermon,
day-of- judgment sermon. Indeed, it fur
1ished the suggestion of that day-of judg-
nent hymn of the Middle Ages, the "Dies
[rae'' "The great day of the year is near"
,ries the preacher" it is near and hasteth
greatly, even the voice of the day of the
Lord; the mighty man crieth there greatly, |
hat day is a day of wrath, day of trouble
md distress, day of wasteness and desola-
ion, day of darkness and gloominess,
lay of clouds and thick darkness, day of
trumpet and alarm, againsr the fenced city,
md against the high battlements.
The sermon rings with the indignation of
God. God looks down upon the earth, and
He sees three sorts of people-those who
lre on His side, pitiful few; those who are
against Him, BaaIs priests and their fol-
overs; and those who try to be ON both
ides at the same time, ''that swear by the
Lord, and that swear by Malchan, " too.
These neutral people He counts among His
nemies God looks down upon the earth,
md He sees not only this little land of
SYRIA. Some people seemed to think that.
rod sees all the earth, and
There Is Evil Everywhere.
There is Egypt in the south and Assyria
II The east, LneIe is fnlllStld also along the |
ca coast, and Moab and Ammon on the
ther side of Jordan. These, too, the Lord
ees and will inevitably punish. All evil,
he whole earth over, shall perish before
he fire of the anger of God. All evil,
whether it be away off in darkest
Sineveh, or right here at home
n Jerusalem, among our princes
nd our judges, and our priests, and our
PROPHETS, and our people. God is right
eus, and no unrighteousness can abide in
lis presence. That is hard lesson. But
t is true-is it not? 1t is a bitter kind of
and we don't preach it so much
n these days, perhaps, as we ought to- But
t is true, as true in Pittsburg as it was in
erusalem. There is such fearful truth,
D be well considered by all thmEhtful men,
S the indignation of the righteous God
here is such a certainty as inevitable pun
,hment
And an equal certainty, thank God, of in
vitable love. God hates sin, but he loves
s. If we turn to Him there e'are no words
} express the gladness with which He will
,ceive us. Zephaniah knows that, too, and
reaches it. And the day-of- Judgment ser
ION ends, as it ought to end, with praise
nd promise, and the inviting of the bene-
iction of God GEORGE HODGES,