Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/562

 capable of serving spiritual beings. And, moreover, he was appointed in the hall of God to extend his aid to the four quarters of the empire, so that he might establish your descendants in this lower world. The people of the four quarters stand in reverent awe of him. Oh! do not let that precious heaven-conferred appointment fall to the ground, and all our former kings will also have a perpetual reliance and resort. I will now seek for your orders from the great tortoise" (C. C., vol. iii. p. 353.—Shoo King, part 5, book 6). After this prayer, the Duke divined with the tortoises, which gave favorable indications. "The oracular responses" were favorable too. Accordingly the king recovered, but the devoted brother, though he did not die, suffered for some time from unjust suspicions, and retired from court. This was after the decease of King Woo. The discovery of the tablets by Woo's successor led to his restoration to favor. The relation of the reign of Hezekiah, one of the most inglorious of Judah's rulers, is an example of the use made of a theory which pervades and colors the whole history of the kings from beginning to end. That theory is, that God favored and protected those monarchs who worshiped and obeyed his prophets, while he punished those who worshiped other gods and neglected his orders. The deposition of Saul, the glory of David, the destruction of the families of Jeroboam and Baasha, the miserable fate of Ahab and his seventy sons, the exaltation of Jehu and his milder punishment proportioned to his mitigated idolatry, are all examples of the prevalence of this theory. Some of the facts indeed were rather difficult to deal with; such, for instance, as the palpable decline of Judea under Hezekiah, and the continuance of its previous misfortunes under Josiah, the most praiseworthy of the kings, who, in spite of his unrivaled piety, was slain in a battle against a mere pagan. But inconsistencies like these might be glossed over or explained away. The best kings might meet with the greatest calamities, and the people of Jehovah might prove even more unfortunate than the heathen. It mattered not. They were still under his protection; and if they suffered, it was because they had not worshiped him enough, or not worshiped him exclusively. With this elastic hypothesis the key to all historical events was found.