A Long Day and Late Sunset

‘’Whenhe wrapp’d
His purple mantle gloriously around,
And took the homage of the princely hills
And ancient forests, as they bow’d them down
Each in his order of nobility.
And then, in glorious pomp, the sun retired
Behind that solemn shadow, and his train
Of crimson and of azure and of gold.
Went floating up the zenith, tint on tint,
And ray on ray, till all the concave caught
His parting benediction.”

A en he died; an dred and thirty years old was he when he died. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel both toward God, and toward his house.” — 2 Chbon. xxiv. 15 16.

That must have been a remarkable spectacle in Jerusalem, when this funeral procession was seen wending along the ridge of Mount Zion, on its way to the sepulchre of the kings. No royal head has bowed to the stroke of death, — and yet the gates of that sacred mausoleum, which holds the dust of David, Solomon, and the succeeding kings, have that day been flung open to receive an addition to its silent trust!

Who can be the newly-embalmed and shrouded occupant for the long home of silence? For whom has a nation decreed this strange, unwonted honour? Honour, indeed, it was; for zealously were these precincts guarded against unworthy entrants. Royalty itself was not ahvays a passport through these gloomy portals, if life had been stained with dishonour or crime. The very last king who died in his palace in Jerusalem (though the blood of David flowed in his veins) was deemed unmeet to repose along with the dust of his sires. After an inglorious reign of eight years Jehoram was buried, we are told, “w the city of David, hut not ia the sepulchres of the kings.’’ *

Who, then, is this honoured subject for whom regal obsequies are appointed, whilst his master is left to his long slumber in a meaner resting-place? No regalia, no imposing symbols of royalty, are carried alongside that bier; yet the

* 2 Chron. xxi. 20.

long funeral crowd, and the undisguised, undissenibled lamentations, truthfully proclaim that ‘* a prince in Israel has fallen,”

True, Jehoiada, in his official position, as God’s high priest, was wort])y of all honour; yet, most of the Jewish pontiffs passed to their graves in strict privacy, without leaving in the sacred chronicles even a register of their death or burial. It was his character and worth, not his position, which gathered that mourning crowd, and opened that place of honoured interment! We are summoned in thought to the funeral of a faithful public servant, — a venerable patriarch, — a minister and man of God; — one who, for the long period of one hundred and thirty years, had lived out that great definition of spiritual existence, ‘•’ to he good and to do good.” His name was not associated with great hero-deeds or brilliant martial exploits. He had a better and nobler vocation. By his plty and zeal, his prudence and sagacity, ho had steered the ark of God amid environing storms. Half a generation — thirty years — had passed, since he had been able to engage in active duty; but even that long “sunset” — that period of deepening twilight — was one, too, of sacred and momentous influence. Ahxs! no sooner had his hand left the helm, and death sealed his eyes, than the ark was once more among the breakers. His brother Hebrews, therefore, had not miscalculated his worth when they followed his body to its grave with tears, and decreed to him regal obsequies.

The funeral is all left to imagination. The sepulchre on Zion has long ago mouldered with the royal dust which for ages it enclosed; but the epitaph on Jehoiada’s shrine is still

Icffc deathless and imperishable on the pai2,c.s of Scripture — ‘They hurled him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God, and ioivard his house.”

As we read his panegyric let us select, among others, three features of his character which stand out with special prominence — his faith, his intrepidity, and his disinterestedness.

I. His faith.

His lot, as we have just said, wa? cast in a stormy period of Judah’s history. It will require a brief historical summary to put the reader in possession of the ecclesiastical and political exigencies of the time.

One of the basest and most unscrupulous of tyrants (a disgrace to her sex) swayed at this moment the usurped sceptre of the house of David. It was the one only blot in the fair fame of good Jehoshaphat, that, from motives of worldly policy (oh, how many in a similar way blight and ruin their children’s prospects), he brought about an unhallowed marriage-union between his son and successor to the throne and a daughter of Ahab and his infamous queen Jezebel. Ath:iliah inherited alike the depraved nature and practice of her Syrian mother; she obtained a speedy control over the facile mind of Jehoram, who, obliterating all memory of his father’s goodness, plunged into the wild excesses of the house of Ahab — importing to Jerusalem Phenician idolatries, and stripping the very Temple to decorate a shrine for Baal His name means “God-exalted,” but by his own gu.ilty deeds he became rather God-forsaken. Philistines and Arabiins were stirred up to inflict on him the divine retribution. They sacked the palaces, dragged his wives and children into captivity — Athaliah and her son Ahaziah alone being left.

Ahaziah’s reign was a brief and inglorious one. He fell, mortally wounded, on the heights of Jezreel, and was buried in Samaria. On his unexpected decease, the artful queen-mother, as the only means of perpetuating her power, and of gratifying an unnatural ambition, resolved on the desperate and unscrupulous measure of consigning the remaining seed-royal to a cruel and indiscriminate massacre. “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she may not have compassion on the son of her womb? She may forget.” * Yes, she did forget! It was her own unhappy grandchildren whose blood had to answer the sanguinary edict!

Good old Jehoiada the high priest, at an age extending to nearly a century, looked on in dismay at the inauguration of this reio;n of terror. He was himself united in marriaoe to a daughter of Jehoram; and they were jointly cognisant of a fact that had escaped the knowledge of the regicide — viz., that one infant child of the king still survived the cruel extermination. They knew God’s promise, and they had faith to ‘believe that it would not fail. “The Lord hath siuorn in truth unto David; he luill not turn from it. Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon THY throne. “-[• It was a perilous experiment — a bold venture, whose discovery would cost them their lives; but they resolved (confiding the fact to a rjclect few) to secrete this only remaining scion of David’s line, with his nurse, in one of the chambers of the Temple.

* Isa. xlix. 15. t Ps. cxxxii. 11.

Meantime they would watch the favourable niomont, to wrest for him the sceptre from the hands of the usurper, and invest him with his hereditary rights.

We can imagine that nothing but a devout faith in God could have instigated this pious pair to so perilous a resolve. Ic was, of all others, a subject for the exercise of faith. The very spot in the sacred corridors wdiere that little one night by night was roclvcd asleep, seemed to be a pledge of safety and success. Was it not of the temple-courts the Lord Himself said, “There will I make the hokn of David to bud; I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed.” * Might not this be the sacred lullaby his aunt loved to sing in the sacred chamber over his cradle, “In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle he shall hide me? “i* Yes! God had” ordained a lamp for his anointed.” * That lamp was flickering. It was reduced to one feeble spark in the person of a little infant. The extinction of that spark would be the extinguishing of God’s promise. But they knew that “what God had promised, he was able also to perform.” That tiny lamp was confided to their custody. They would do all they could, looking to Him for a blessing, to preserve it from being quenched by the fury of the oppressor. Did not the parents of Moses, in similar circumstances, and in the face of an exterminating massacre, hide their child for three successive months, and “were not afraid of the king’s commandment?” In a like spirit, undeterred by the certain vengeance which disclosure of their plot would entail, they are “strong in faith, giving glory to GoJ.’” J

Oh, for a spirit of similar faith in the midst of diffi- * Ps. cxxxii. 17. + Ps. xxvii. 5. t Rom. iv. 20.

culties, — believing God’s declarations, trusting His faithfulness, and with our finger on His promises, saying, ‘’ Rememher this tvord unto thy servant, on which thou heist caused me to hope! “‘God often puts us in perplexingpositions for the trial of our faith. He brings his people, or his Church, into exigencies, where” vain is the help of man,” just that we may, with unswerving coniidence, cast our burdens upon Iliin, saying, with the Psalmist,” This I know; for God is for me. In God will I praise His word; in the Lord luill I praise His word. In God have I put my trust ‘I will not be afraid loliat man can do unto me.’*

II. Let us note Jehoiada’s boldness and intrepidity.

Boldness in action is the necessary result of faith. It is the principle of faith bearing fruit. Doubtless, Jehoiada had oft and again commended his enterprise in prayer to Him “who dwelt between the cherubim,” and was encouraged, by an appeal to the Urim, to go boldly forward.

It was on a Sabbath morning — when the sacrifice was laid on the altar, and the crowd were standing round the outer temple-gates. The fresh relay of priests and Levitcs had just come in; and the others, whose weekly course that day expired, according to wont, remained inside the sacred enclosure till evening. Thus a double sjuard — a double force was secured, for the carrying out of the bold plot. The secret, wisely and judiciously confided to a confidential few, had been whispered in other favouring ears. Jehoiada concerted with” the rulers of hundreds, and the captains,^’ an;l * Ps. lvi. 9-11.

he said unto them, “Behold, the Icings son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the S07is of David.” * The votive trophies of battle, — spears and swords which king David had placed in the temple- armoury, — were taken down from the walls on which they had for a century hung. Making use of these v/Lapons, the enrolment of a volunteer band of priests and Levites was speedily completed. These were posted at the several avenues, to guard alike against confusion or attack. On a raised seat or platform, adjoining “the monarcJi’s pillar,” with massive golden crown on his head, and the testimony in his hand, stood an innocent boy of seven years of age. It was young Joash, the alone survivor of the nmrdered family! But there he was, God’s own pledge that the fruit of David’s body should “sit upon his throne!” And now the astounding fact, (for six years carefully concealed from the jDopulace,) that in these priestly chambers there slumbered, night after night, an heir of the throne of Judab, was made known 1 It spreads with the speed of a conflagration. The shout “God save the King f rises first in the Temple-court. It is caught up by the dense crovv’d thronging the gates. The strange, unwonted commotion floats across the Tyropean Valley, and is wafted in at the palace windows to the eai-s of the queen. In a few moments she has crossed the bridge connecting palace and temple. A glance of her infuriate eye reads the whole truth. ‘’ Treason! treason! ‘”’ she cries in vain, to her dumb, unpitying, unsuccouring guards. Her life of guilt is fast ebbing to a close — her die is cast. As the shouts of a patriot people are ringing a welcome to their young king, the infamous Athaliah is diagged outside

* 2 Chron. xxiii. 3.

the sacied enclosure to pay the just penalty for her crimes. She lies weltering in her own blood!

We cannot sufficiently admire the calm forethought, the consummate prudence, and the determined intrepidity of Jehoiada. It was an enterprise which required a wise head and a strong hand, as well as a pious heart. We should naturally look, at all events, for the accomplishment of such a plot to other than one whose head was whitened with the snows of a century. In this respect, it is a deed unparalleled in the annals of sacred history. Such exploits generally demand the prime of manhood, when the sun of life is at its meridian. We look for quiet bars of purple and gold — emblems of repose — when that sun is going down; — then •’ the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men hoio themselves, and those that look out of the windows are darkened; when fears are in the luay, and the grasshopper is a burden, and desire fails’’ * The stirring ambition, as well as the physical endurance, requisite for such deeds, have then generally declined; and luhen they occur, we must look for some stronger than any impelling natural principle. God had evidently nerved that old man’s arm. He had girded him for the battle. He had, with reference to his old age, verified the truth of that unfailing promise: giving “strength ’ equal to his “day.” He had answered his prayer — “0 God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared tJiy tvondrous tvorks. JS^ow also, when T am old and grey-headed, 0 God, forsake me not, until I have shelved thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come” +

Eccle3. xii. 5. .- t Ps. lxxi. 17, 18.

It belongs not to God’s ministers to intermeddle with political intrigues, save in the gravest emergencies, when His cause and His Church are concerned in the issue. But it is a remarkable and encouraging fact that, in all great and momentous crises of His Church’s history, when its bulwarks have been assailed by enemies without or traitors within. He has ever raised up men adequate for the exigency; sage in counsel; firm in principle; bold and intrepid in action; who have, like Jehoiada, not only been instrumental in sheathing the sword of oppression, “stilling the enemy and the avenger,” but in vindicating truth, upholding the cause of righteousness, and transmitting a heritage of spiritual blessings from generation to generation.

HI. Let us further mark Jehoiada’s disinterestedness.

Duty and self-interest are often in conflict and antagonism. It was so with Jehoiada. Had he been a selfish man, — guided (as the world too often is) by police/, and sacrificing all that is sacred to base and unworthy personal ambition, he was the very last who should have betrayed any anxiety to shield Joash from the general massacre. 1 hough he himself had no royal blood in his veins, jet (by marrying the sister of the former king) his own son Zechariah was (failing the children of Ahaziah) the heir-apparent to the throne of Judah. If, therefore, on principles of base worldly expediency, he had been careful to secrete any one from the vengeance of Athaliah, it would have been his own child rather than Joash. But this good and honoured man would spurn such sordid baseness. Though he had the strong temptation of the golden crown glittering on the brows of his own son, with a noble disinterestedness he takes with parental fondness the unprotected orphan and rival under his nurturing roof, and does all in his power to prevent a cruel tyrant stretching forth her hand against the Lord’s anointed.

Noble lesson here, too, in the midst of a world and an age of selfishness! When we see so many grasping with unscru23ulous avidity any tempting bribe; — from avaricious nionarchs grasping kingdoms, to avaricious and unscrupulous citizens in private life building their own reputation and fortune on the ruins of another — stooping to base artifice, godless ‘’expediency,” unprincipled policy, in compassing their ends; — oh, it is refreshing to turn to these staunch examples in the olden days, where self-interest spurned to climb the coveted heights on the ruins of a man’s life, or means, or character; — willing, disinterestedly, to give way, although another rather than themselves be bettered, if the will and cause of God be promoted, — submitting to any amount of sacrifice for private and public good. ‘’All seek their own” is the too truthful motto of these degenerate times; but the noblest feature in a man’s character is abnegation of self; — if his fellows can point to him and say, “That man is as much interested in the welfare of others as in his own.”

If we have dwelt mainly on the one public act of Jehoiada, it is not to the exclusion of the more strictly religious traits of his character and history; for it is evident from the sacred narrative, that Vtbat embalmed him most in the memories of Israel — what summoned forth the warmest tears on that day of his funeral — was his great work in connexion with the repairing of the house of the Lord. His sacred influence had happily been brought to bear upon the young kino-. “Go out,” was the command of Joash to the Levites — “Go out unto the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that ye hasten the matter. And the king and Jehoiada gave it to such as did the ivorh of the service of the house of the Lord, and hired masons and carpenters to rej)air the house of the Lord, and also such as lurought iron and brass to mend the house of the Lord. So the woikmen lurought, and the work luas perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it.”* Happy for a nation, happy for a church, when they have in their rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, this combination of political sagacity and manly piety; — unflinching alike in their fidelity to the throne and the altar, “rendering to Caesar the things that are Csesar s, and unto God the things that are God’s:” — who, moreover, imbued with the great truth that it is “righteousness” alone which “exalteth a nation,” deem it the loftiest mission in which they can be embarked, to “lengthen Zion’s cords and strengthen her stakes.” How many there are whose life-long ambition is posthumous fame; — that, like Jehoiada, they may be “buried in the city among the kings,” and on storied urns or marble cenotajihs their names may be hauded down to successive generations! God’s Great Ones have a truer and nobler inanortality; but if you would have the most enviable immortality ca7^th can bestow, — if yon would aspire to live in the memories and hearts of those that

* 2 Chron. xxiv. 5, 12, 13.

come after you, — let the panegyric on the old priest of Israel be the coveted epitaph on your lowlier grave-stone, — it mav stimulate others, as they read it, to follow your steps, — “He had done good in Iseael, both towaeds God and

TOWAEDS HIS HOUSfi.**