cate the cause of these singular lights and shadows in the experiences and mutations of human life: "When I was a child," writes the Apostle, "I spake as a child; I understood as a child; I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

CHAPTER II.

The Sheol of the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament.

PREFACE.

Apocrypha originally meant secret or concealed, and was rendered current by the Jews of Alexandria. In the earlier churches, it was applied with very different significations to a variety of writings. Sometimes it was given to those whose authorship and original form were unknown; sometimes to writings containing a hidden meaning; or at other times to such as were objectionable; sometimes to those whose public use was not thought advisable. In this last signification, it has been customary, since the time of Jerome, to apply the term to a number of writings which the Septuagint had circulated among the Christians, and which were sometimes considered as an appendage to the Old Testament, and sometimes as a portion of it. The same name has been retained for them in Luther's translation of the Bible, where they are given as additions merely to the Old Testament. The Christian Church has fluctuated in its acknowledgment and use of these writings. The Greek Church, at the council of Lao

dicea, A.D. 360, pronounced decidedly against them, excluding them from the canon; the Latin Church, on the contrary, has always assigned them, at least since the council of Carthage, A.D. 397, a high place as worthy of reverence and esteem, without declaring them to be of equal authority with the other Scriptures; which was first done by the council of Trent, although they had been in general use as part of the Sacred Scriptures long before. At the Reformation, the Protestants generally rejected them; but in some of the Protestant Churches they soon began again to be read in public worship, although in some of them passages occur which decidedly favor Roman Catholic doctrines. The Church of England, in her Articles, enumerates the books of the apocrypha as books which 'the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners, but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.' Some portions of them are, therefore, included in the lessons of the Church. By the other Protestant Churches in Britain as well as in America, they are completely rejected from public worship.

Impartially considered, these apocryphal writings, or at least a part of them, are not of very great importance.* They have chiefly a historical value, throwing some light

*The apocrypha: libri dubiæ fidei, are, indeed, of great use inasmuch as they acquaint us with the Jewish mode of thinking on religious and ethical subjects, common in the later periods of their Commonwealth, and of showing how far they agree or disagree with the teachings set forth in the canonical books. Agreement evinces respect for those books, disagreement, indifference to their authority, in either case we have an index of the estimation in which the canon was held in the different periods of the apocryphal writers.-G.

on the religious condition of the Jews, from the time when the Old Testament ceases to be our guide, to the Christian era. They are distinguished into: 1st, Those which originated in Palestine, as Jesus Son of Sirach, valuable for its generally pure morality, written in Hebrew about 180 years B.C., and translated into Greek about 130 years B.C.; the First Book of Maccabees, written about 135 years B C., which is of great historical value; and the valueless book of Judith 2d, Those which are of Egypto-Alexandrine origin, as the Book of Wisdom, the Second of Maccabees, and the addition to Esther: and 3d, Those which bear traces of Chaldaic or Persian influence, as Esdras, Tobit, Baruch, and the addition to Daniel. The Book of Wisdom is the crown of the whole. In old editions of the Bible the apocrypha is sometimes seen, being bound up between the Old and the New Testament. From the authorized editions in common use, it is regularly excluded; and, except as a curiosity, it is little known to the generality of readers.*

PARAGRAPH I.

The First Book of Esdras, i. 25-31, and the Obsequies of King Josiah : 2 Chronicles, XXXV. 20-25.

Josiah-the same as Josias, the son of Amon and king of Judah, was but eight years of age, when in A.M. 3363, he ascended the Jewish throne. In the eighth year of his reign, he began already to be noted for his piety and zeal, and in the twelfth he purged Jerusalem and Judea from idols, while he burned the deceased priests' bones upon the altar of the false gods whom they had served.

*Chambers's Encyclopædia.

This decidedly orthodox prince seems to have been accessory to his premature and lamented death; for Necho, the king of Egypt, who was marching through his territories with a great army against the king of Assyria, assured him that he entertained no hostile designs against him or his country, and entreated him not to interfere with him in his contest with the Assyrian monarch. Whatever may have been the motives which governed Josiah upon this critical occasion, he attempted to oppose the Egyptian army, and a battle was fought at Megiddo, in which he was mortally wounded, and, carried off the field in his carriage, he was brought to Jerusalem, where he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchers of his fathers.

"No king, perhaps," writes Doctor Alexander, "was ever more deservedly beloved; and certainly we know of none who was more sincerely and tenderly bewailed by his people. Indeed, his death was the end of prosperity to the kingdom of Judah. Jeremiah, the prophet, was greatly affected by the death of this excellent prince, and composed an elegy on the occasion; and all those accustomed to celebrate in song the worth and achievements of men of great eminence, both men and women, spoke of Josiah in their lamentations for ages after his death. He was only thirtynine years old when he was slain."

The salient points in this touching obituary narrative are, first, the notice that the corpse of this good monarch, "was buried in one of the sepulchers of his fathers," an honor, which only a virtuous ruler, in the Jewish sense of the term, could hope to enjoy; secondly, that "all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him;" thirdly, that the prophet Jeremiah, himself a man of distinguished worth, mourned

the untimely death of this excellent prince as a severe national loss, in an elegy, suitable to the sad occasion; fourthly, that "singing men and singing women," acted a prominent part in the obsequies of the lamented dead; and fifthly, that "it was made an ordinance in Israel,” that the death of this venerated king should be thenceforth celebrated in anniversary lamentations of the nation, or as Esdras, writes: "It was given for an ordinance to be done continually in all the nation of Israel."

No allusion is here made to Sheol or the abode of the dead the dead is to be mourned in annual lamentations as long as the nation shall endure. Alas, not even a feeble glimmer of hope lights up the dim vista in the future to assuage the grief and calm the fears of the weary, fainting soul. Well might every Jewish mourner-thus shrouded in deep gloom and abased into the dust, have looked up to Heaven, and-in the pathetic language of the sinking Apostle, Matthew, xiv. 30, prayed: "Lord save me," orI perish!

PARAGRAPH II.

The Second Book of Esdras, iv. 41; v. 35; vii. 31–32; vii. 43; vii. 47; vii. 53; viii. 52; ix. 11-12; xiv. 34–35.

In these different texts, pregnant with interesting ideas, and hopeful anticipations, the following important dogmas are set forth on some very grave subjects, connected with the grim realm of Sheol; the psychical state of the shades in Sheol; their certain amenability to a just future retribution; their final destiny, etc. These absorbing topics, clearly expressed and accurately defined, will be employed as the significant themes of a concise yet adequate description of the abode and condition of departed spirits.