Page:The message of the hour - four sermons delivered on the new years' day, and the day of atonement, 5651-1890 (IA messageofhourfou00moseiala).pdf/42

 the reins of government. To them the religion of Israel was but a part of the state machinery, and Jehovah, the God of Israel, stood on a par with all other respectable or disrespectable deities of the surrounding heathen nations. To win their favor, and the political alliance of the people who worshiped them, was considered an act of prudence and statescraft. Baal and Jehovah were all the same to them, if but by the change some profit was visible, new conquests, better times, new markets for Israelitish goods, honors at foreign courts; or, to the stupid majority, the outlook for a good harvest or immunity from prevailing sickness.

Against such treachery and faithlessness toward the inmost life of Israel the prophets protested most vehemently, even at the risk ot their own lives and not in vain. Before their thundering voices the thrones of idolatrous kings trembled, and the walls of their palaces sunk into ruins. This inward conflict between the ideal interests of the people and the question of material welfare could end but in the destruction of the Iraelitish commonwealth. Yea, the great zeal of the prophets for the purity of the religion of Israel, for the ideal life of the people, was the direct cause of the total annihilation of the Jewish State. They killed the body that the soul might live. What would have been the fate of the people without these uncompromising upholders of the ideal mission of Israel? If the policy of their kings had obtained, the nation might have existed a few hundred years longer; the princes would have built some more palaces, filled their stables with more horses, their courts with more slaves, their harems with the daughters of many nations; the nobles and grandees would have enjoyed more gorgeous feasts, the priests would have continued tor some time longer to slaughter victims, and unctiously sprinkle their blood upon the altars, to swing the censer with grace and dignity, and with well-trained, melodious voice utter the prescribed benediction. Israel's merchants would have carried on much longer a successful and profitable business with Tyre, Sydon, Egypt and Babylon. But the religion of Israel would have been stifled by this material prosperity. The God of hosts would have lost his identity among the host of gods, and Israel would have shared the fate of those very nations whose beliefs, customs and laws they were so