membered. To him may be
traced the unyielding devotion of the Jews, after the Captivity, for the
rites and forms and ceremonies which are found in the books of the Law.
The legalisms of the Scribes may be traced to him. He reigned but twelve
years after his great reformation,--not long enough to root out the
heathenism which had prevailed unchecked for nearly seventy years. With
him perished the hopes of the kingdom.

After his death the decline was rapid. A great reaction set in, and
faction was accompanied with violence. The heathen party triumphed over
the orthodox party. The passions which had been suppressed since the
death of Manasseh burst out with all the frenzy and savage hatred which
have ever marked the Jews in their religious contentions, and these were
unrestrained by the four kings who succeeded Josiah. The people were
devoured by religious animosities, and split up into hostile factions.
Had the nation been united, it is possible that later it might have
successfully resisted the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah gave vent
to his despairing sentiments, and held out no hope. When Elijah had
appealed to the people to choose between Jehovah and Baal, he was
successful, because they were then undecided and wavering in their
belief, and it required only an evidence of superior power to bring
them back to their allegiance. But when Jeremiah appeared, idolatry was
the popular religion. It had become so firmly established by a
succession of wicked kings, added to the universal degeneracy, that even
Josiah could work but a temporary reform.

Hence the voice of Jeremiah was drowned. Even the prophets of his day
had become men of the world. They fawned on the rich and powerful whose
favor they sought, and prophesied "smooth things" to them. They were the
optimists of a decaying nation and a godless, pleasure-seeking
generation. They were to Jerusalem what the Sophists were to Athens when
Demosthenes thundered his disregarded warnings. There were, indeed, a
few prophets left who labored for the truth; but their words fell on
listless ears. Nor could the priests arrest the ruin, for they were as
corrupt as the people. The most learned among them were zealous only for
the letter of the law, and fostered among the people a hypocritical
formalism. True religious life had departed; and the noble Jeremiah, the
only great statesman as well as prophet who remained, saw his influence
progressively declining, until at last h