Asia was sealed
when Rezin of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria, Hiram of Tyre, and the king
of Hamath moodily consented to pay tribute to the king of Assyria; the
downfall of the sturdy Judah was in preparation.

Greater evils than those of war threatened the stability of the state.
In Judah as in Ephraim drunkenness was a national vice, and the nobles
abandoned themselves to disgraceful debauchery. There was a general
demoralization of the people more fearful in its consequences than even
idolatry. Judah was no exception to the ordinary fate of nations; the
everlasting sequence--pertaining to institutions as well as nations, to
religious as well as merely political communities--was here
seen,--"Inwardness, outwardness, worldliness, and rottenness."

It was in this state of political danger and a general decline in
morals, with a tendency to idolatry, that Isaiah--preacher, statesman,
historian, poet, and prophet--was born.

Less is said of the personal history of this great man than of Moses or
David, of Daniel or Elisha, and it is only in his writings that we see
the solemn grandeur of his character. We infer that he was allied with
the royal family of David; he certainly held a high position in the
courts of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. He was a man of great dignity,
experience, and wisdom, but ascetic in his habits and dress. Although he
associated with the great in courts and palaces, a cell was his delight.
He was a retiring, contemplative, rapt, austere man, severe on
passing follies, and not sparing in his rebukes of sin in high
places,--something like Savonarola at Florence, both as preacher and
prophet,--and exercising a commanding influence on political affairs
and on the people directly, especially during the reigns of Ahaz and
Hezekiah. He denounced woes and calamities, yet escaped persecution from
the grandeur of his character and the importance of his utterances. He
was a favorite of King Hezekiah, and was contemporary with the prophets
Hosea, Amos, and Jonah. He lived in Jerusalem, not far from the Temple,
and had a wife and two sons. He wrote the life of Uzziah, and died at
the age of eighty-four, in the reign of Manasseh. It is generally
supposed that although Isaiah had lived in honor during the reigns of
four kings, he suffered martyrdom at last. It is the fate of prophets to
be stoned when they are in antagonism with men in power, or with popular
sentiments. His prophetic ministry extended over a peri