e was utterly disregarded. Yet
he maintained his dignity, and fearlessly declared his message.

In the meantime the triumphant Necho, after the defeat and dispersion of
Josiah's army, pursued his way toward Damascus, which he at once
overpowered. From thence he invaded Assyria, and stripped Nineveh of
its most fertile provinces. The capital itself was besieged by
Nabopolassar and Cyaxares the Mede, and Necho was left for a time in
possession of his newly-acquired dominion.

Josiah was succeeded by his son Shallum, who assumed the crown under the
name of Jehoaz, which event it seems gave umbrage to the king of Egypt.
So he despatched an army to Jerusalem, which yielded at once, and King
Jehoaz was sent as a captive to the banks of the Nile. His elder brother
Eliakim was appointed king in his place, under the name of Jehoiakim,
who thus became the vassal of Necho. He was a young man of twenty-five,
self-indulgent, proud, despotic, and extravagant. There could be no more
impressive comment on the infatuation and folly of the times than the
embellishment of Jerusalem with palaces and public buildings, with the
view to imitate the glory of Solomon. In everything the king differed
from his father Josiah, especially in his treatment of Jeremiah, whom he
would have killed. He headed the movement to restore paganism; altars
were erected on every hill to heathen deities, so that there were more
gods in Judah than there were towns. Even the sacred animals of Egypt
were worshipped in the dark chambers beneath the Temple. In the most
sacred places of the Temple itself idolatrous priests worshipped the
rising sun, and the obscene rites of Phoenician idolatry were performed
in private houses. The decline in morals kept pace with the decline of
spiritual religion. There was no vice which was not rampant throughout
the land,--adultery, oppression of foreigners, venality in judges,
falsehood, dishonesty in trade, usury, cruelty to debtors, robbery and
murder, the loosing of the ties of kindred, general suspicion of
neighbors,--all the crimes enumerated by the Apostle Paul among the
Romans. Judah in reality had become an idolatrous nation like Tyre and
Syria and Egypt, with only here and there a witness to the truth, like
Jeremiah, the prophetess Huldah, and Baruch the scribe.

This relapse into heathenism filled the soul of Jeremiah with grief and
indignation, but gave to him a courage foreign to his timid and
shrinking nature. In the