chastening had been accomplished. This theory of disease and cure among the Hebrews will, in its application, throw much light upon all the passages which more or less bear upon the subject.

As we shall, in the Illustrations of the New Testament, have to take up the further developments of a subject which is most prominently brought forward in that portion of divine revelation, we here limit our view, as much as possible, to the state of the matter before Christ. For the elucidation of this, there is a most remarkable passage in the Apocrypha, which has been much overlooked in the consideration of the question. It is in Ecclesiasticus; and as the apocryphal books are not now generally accessible, we give it entire below.1

It appears to us that this passage very exactly defines the position of the physician. It allows him honour, and gives due weight to his skill and the real use of the means he employs, but admirably refers all to God. The skill of the physician is his; the medicaments are his; and the cure is his. Even

the skill of the physician is proportioned to the faculty he

1 IIonour a physician with the honour due unto him, for the uses which ye may have of him for the Lord hath created him. For of the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour of the king. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head [i. c. raise him to honour]: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. Was not the water made sweet with wood, that the virtue thereof might be known? And He giveth men skill, that He might be honoured in his marvellous works. With such doth He heal [men], and taketh away their pains. Of such doth the apothecary make a confection; and of his works there is no end; and from Him is peace over all the earth. My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and He will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thine heart from all wickedness. Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour; and make a fat offering, as not being. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success for they shall also pray unto the Lord, that He would prosper that which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life.

He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician.'-Ecclus. Xxxviii. 1-15.

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possesses of rendering God honour, by his knowledge and employment of the healing properties which He has imparted to various productions of the earth. In the last clause there is, however, something which would be regarded as a sarcasm on the profession if it were met with in a modern writing He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician!'

Forty-fifth Week-Third Day.

OMRI. I KINGS XVI. 23-29.

AHAB was on the throne of Israel when Asa died in Judah. He was the second king of his family. It is remarkable of his father Omri, that he was the first founder of a new dynasty, who did not come to the crown by a revolt against his sovereign, and the extermination of his house. It is true that he led the army against Zimri; but, in so doing, he appeared as the avenger of the king whom Zimri had murdered, and the usurper's reign of a week, if it can be called a reign, was too short to enable his family, if he had any, to establish any influence dangerous to Omri, or to render their extermination politically expedient. However, it came to pass that Omri attained to the throne with comparatively undefiled hands. He was even spared the blood of Zimri, that guilty man having burned the royal palace over his head in Tirzah, which had by this time become the capital.

This incident had the effect of removing the metropolis to a more central and desirable situation. Instead of rebuilding the consumed palace, Omri concluded to build not only a new palace, but a new town elsewhere. It is much to the credit of his judgment and taste, that he perceived the advantages which the hill of Samaria offered for the seat of a royal city. There is probably not a finer or more desirable situation in Palestine ; and many travellers have expressed a conviction, that the spot was in most respects much preferable to the site of Jerusalem,

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although the special objects contemplated in the divine wisdom rendered it expedient that the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Hebrew nation should be established there.

The verdant valley which breaks through the mountains westward between Ebal and Gerizim, spreads out, often for three or four miles, into a broad circular basin, five or six miles in diameter, and bounded on every side by beautiful mountains. From the rich plains of this glorious valley, enclosed by an amphitheatre of mountains, and near to the western side, rises a very high and steep hill, affording a position of impregnable strength, and of almost unapproachable loveliness. About midway up the ascent, the hill is surrounded by a narrow terrace of level ground, like a belt, below which the roots of the hill spread off more gradually into the valleys. This was the hill which belonged to one Shemer, and which Omri bought of him for about seven hundred pounds. Here he established the royal seat of his kingdom; and he had the good taste to call the new town not by his own name, but by that of the previous owner of the land, in the form of Shimron -better known to us in the softened shape of SAMARIA, which it assumed in the Greek language. We are not sure, however, that the credit of this graceful course is due to the spontaneous generosity of Omri. Considering how reluctant the Hebrews were to alienate any lands belonging to them, and that the kings had no power to compel such alienation, it is quite possible that Shemer could only be induced to part with the hill on the condition that his name at least should stand there as a memorial that it had once belonged to him. This, which occurs to us at the moment of writing, seems a very probable explanation of this remarkable fact, and is consonant to the known feelings of the Hebrew landholders. Without it, there does not after all appear any adequate reason why Omri should give the name of Shemer to a place which had become his by the payment of what was no doubt regarded as an adequate, if not liberal, compensation.

Of Omri it is said, that, in the eyes of the Lord, his conduct on the throne was worse than that of all the kings before him.

The particulars are not directly stated in the history, further than that he carried out with vigour the fatal and ruinous policy of Jeroboam. But if we reflect upon the incidental facts and allusions connected with his name and proceedings, we may be able to obtain some clearer idea of his character and offences. If we refer to the prophecy of Micah (vi. 16), we find this remarkable statement,- For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab.' Taking this into connection with the character which the historian ascribes to him, we cannot doubt that these statutes of Omri,' which were but too well maintained by his successors, and observed by the subjects of his kingdom, were measures adopted for more completely isolating the people of Israel from the services. of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, and for perpetuating, perhaps increasing, their idolatrous practices. His indifference to the evils of idolatry at least, if not his desire to encourage it, as tending to render the separation between the two kingdoms more complete, is incidentally confirmed by the fact, that he brought about a marriage between Ahab, his son and heir, and Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre.1 The Tyrians were devoted to the worship of Baal; and the reigning family seem to have carried an ardour of proselytism into this worship not often witnessed in the ancient idolatries. Knowing this, and knowing, as he must have known, that the feeble character of his son would be sure to bring him entirely under the control and influence of a strong-minded woman, especially as the kings of Israel confined themselves to one wife, we cannot acquit Omri of a culpable disregard of the duty of maintaining the interests of the true religion among his people, even if he had not the sagacity to foresee, nor the wickedness to design, the consequences which actually occurred from this connection.

1 In the text Ethbaal is called 'king of the Zidonians;' but it appears from Josephus, that he was also king of Tyre. The dominion included both cities, and the people collectively are called Zidonians' in Scripture. The territorial title in Scripture is 'king of Tyre;' the Gentile title, 'king of the Zidonians.'

The circumstance is historically interesting, as showing that it fell to the kings of Israel, and not to the descendants of David in Judah, to maintain the connection with Tyre which David and Solomon had established. The house of David, separated now by the kingdom of Israel from Tyre, had no longer any interest in maintaining a political connection with Tyre, though it did not forfeit nor relinquish the accustomed advantages of finding there, in common with Israel, a mart for its surplus agricultural produce. This interesting fact we learn from Ezekiel (xxvii. 17), where, speaking of Tyre, the prophet says: 'Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.'

With Israel the connection gradually became more close, closer even than it had been in the time of Solomon. There was not, indeed, the same interest in commercial enterprises. But even a stronger tie of common interest had at this time grown up between the nations. The active, ambitious, and encroaching power which had arisen in Damascene-Syria could not be regarded without uneasiness even by Tyre, which must have felt an interest in sustaining, by its alliance, the kings of Israel in possession of that portion of northern territory, which alone separated its own dominion from so dangerous a neighbour. That neighbour was about this time very active, and had made alarming advances towards Phoenicia, by wresting from Omri a considerable portion of the intervening territory. The natural tendency of this was to draw the two courts of Tyre and Israel more closely to each other for mutual support -the friendship of each being desirable to the other: Omri needing the alliance of Tyre to strengthen himself against the encroachments of Syria; and Tyre clearly perceiving that to strengthen Israel, was a measure of defence for itself. We thus behold an adequate reason—in such human policy as was now alone considered in Israel-for the closer connection which was by this marriage sought between the two kingdoms, and which, in its remoter consequences, might be expected to place on the throne of Israel a king equally related in blood to both