They attack

They ravage the country. Jerusalem. They gain a victory over Manasseh's soldiers, and take the King himself prisoner, and hurry him off far away from his native land.

How altered was Manasseh's condition! He was a King: he is now a Prisoner. No longer does a crowd of flatterers surround him. "The harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine" are no longer "in his feasts." He is despised in his fetters, and forsaken perhaps by all but Him whose Majesty he had insulted, and whose longsuffering he had abused.

Ah, affliction was the best friend Manasseh ever had. He learns a lesson now that he had never learnt before. He learns that he has a soul to save, and a God to serve. He learns the enormity of his sin, and the guilt of having lived all his life without God. "And when he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him: and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to

Jerusalem into his kingdom.

Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God.”

Restored once more to his kingdom, and blest with the favour of God, Manasseh now lives a new life. He sets himself in earnest to serve the Lord, and to live to His glory. He takes away the strange gods; he pulls down the altars he had built; he has the idol removed from the House of the Lord he calls upon all Judah to serve the true God.

Let us now make two or three reflections on Manasseh's history.

1. How great was his sin! He had a pious father. But religion does not flow in the veins. We can bring up our children religiously. We can train them in a right direction; we can put before them God's truth; but the heart can only be reached by God Himself. They must be "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." But how great is their sin, who, like Manasseh, go wrong, in spite of all their early training, and their religious advantages.

Manasseh did not sin alone. He caused

his children to sin, and encouraged his people also to follow his bad example. What a fearful thought is is, that we may have done harm to others by our own ungodliness! We may have perilled their souls as well as our own. We may have dragged them with us into the same pit of destruction.

2. How difficult did Manasseh find it to undo what he had done. His repentance was sincere. On his return to Jerusalem he earnestly set about doing good. He showed that the tree was changed by the fruit it bore. But, oh, how hard it was to root up all the bad seed, which he himself had sown! He could order the idols to be removed, and the altar of the Lord to be repaired; but he could not either remove or repair the evil that he had done.

See too how his sin left its stain behind. Amon, his son, who succeeded him on the throne, "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh, his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made; and humbled not himself be

fore the Lord, as his father had humbled himself." His sins were imitated, but his repentance was not.

Ah, the prints of sin are deep, and who can rub them out? Manasseh was a pardoned penitent; but the marks of his iniquity remained for years to come.

3. How great was God's love to Manasseh! In his case it may be truly said, "Where sin abounded, there did grace much more abound." Did Manasseh deserve special kindness and forbearance from God? No; just the reverse. He deserved to have fallen under the heavy blow of God's wrath. But he was in mercy spared.

Reader, has God spared you? Week after week, and year after year, has His patience borne with you? You are yet in the land of prayer. Heaven's gate is yet open. Oh that you would seek an entrance there, through the blood of your Redeemer! Soon-perhaps to-day-that gate may be closed on you for ever! Oh that Manasseh's penitence, and Manasseh's pardon, may be yours!

JOSIAH;

OR, THE RIGHT-MINDED KING.

No King came so early to the throne of Judah, as King Josiah. At the tender age of eight years he found himself the Ruler of that great nation. His father, Amon, had been a wicked sovereign; and was so hated by his subjects, that they conspired against him, and slew him in his own palace.

Concerning the first few years of the young King's reign we are told scarcely anything. But the little that is said is enough to show us, that even at this early age he gave proof of decided piety. We are told that "he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord." This seems to have been his determination through life; and a blessed determination it was. He had seen how wrongly his father had acted: and though he probably felt that he had a very difficult course to take, yet he was resolved

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