ut a herdsman, and a gatherer of wild figs. And the Lord took me
as I followed the flock, and said, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel."
And then he turned on that smooth court-priest Amaziah, and pronounced
against him, in the name of the Lord, a curse too terrible to be repeated
here.

Now what was the secret of this inspired herdsman's strength? What
helped him to face priests, nobles, and kings? What did he believe?
What did he preach? He believed and preached the kingdom of God and His
righteousness; the simple but infinite difference between right and
wrong; and the certain doom of wrong, if wrong was persisted in. He
believed in the kingdom of God. He told the kings and the people of all
the nations round, that they had committed cruel and outrageous sins, not
against the Jews merely, but against each other. In the case of Moab,
the culminating crime was an insult to the dead. He had burned the bones
of the king of Edom into lime. In the case of Ammon, it was brutal
cruelty to captive women; but in the cases of Gaza, of Tyre, and of Edom,
it was slave-making and slave-trading invasions of Palestine. "Thus
saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will
not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive
the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. But I will send a fire
upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof."

Yes. Slave-hunting and slave-trading wars--that was and is an iniquity
which the just and merciful Ruler of the earth would not, and will not,
pardon. And honour to those who, as in Africa of late, put down those
foul deeds, wheresoever they are done; who, at the risk of their own
lives, dare free the captives from their chains; and who, if interfered
with in their pious work, dare execute on armed murderers and manstealers
the vengeance of a righteous God. For the Lord God was their King, and
their Judge, whether they knew it or not. And for three transgressions
of theirs, and for four, the Lord would not turn away their punishment,
but would send fire and sword among them, and they should be carried away
captive, as they had carried others away. But to go back. Amos next
turns to his own countrymen--to Judah and Israel, who were then two
separate nations. For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, the
Lord would not turn away their punishment, because they had despised the
law