deprived of his property and reduced to the greatest distress. Some of those whose heresy was visited with this severe chastisement were so unreasonable as to grumble, and pointed out that it was only the clergy who were fattening on their misery and oppression. In saying this they pointed at the spiritual men who passed by; whereupon the faithful king issued a decree, saying, "It is strictly prohibited to look contemptuously at my clergy and to point at them with the finger;" whoever dared to do so was to have his eyes put out and his finger cut off. Unfortunately "these orders of the pious king" led to the formation of a party of malcontents, by two of whom he was strangled in his sleep. The lamentations of the historian at this untoward event are unmeasured. The power and strength of the Thibetan kingdom ran away like the stream of spring waters; the happiness and welfare of the people were extinguished like a lamp whose oil is exhausted; the royal power and majesty vanished like the colors of the rainbow; the black religion began to prevail like a destructive tempest; the inclination to good dispositions and good deeds was forgotten like a dream. Moreover, the translation of religious writings remained unfinished—for this king had also resembled Josiah in his interest in sacred books;—and those great men who adhered to the true religion could only weep over its decline and fall (G. O. M., p. 361).
Not less pitiable was the fate of Judea under the irreligious monarchs who followed upon Josiah. One was taken prisoner by the king of Egypt; two others were carried off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar; under the fourth, the national independence was finally extinguished, and the people reduced to a condition of captivity in a foreign land. This calamity is distinctly ascribed to their neglect of the true religion, and their contempt for the messengers of God (2 Chron. xxxvi. 14-17).
Strictly speaking, the history of the Jewish nation ends with the Captivity. But there are still three books of a historical character in the Old Testament, Ezra and Nehemiah, relating the fortunes of a small number of Jews who returned to the land of their forefathers, when a change of policy in their rulers rendered this return possible; and Esther, containing the account of the reception of a Jewish woman into the harem of
