Charlotte M. Yonge

“ In his great distress Hezekiah went up to the Temple, and told God all his trouble. And he said, "Thou art the God, even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: Thou hast made heaven and earth." He said he knew the gods of those nations could not save them, for they were no gods, only wood and stone; but he trusted that God would save him and his people, though they were far too weak to defend themselves against this terrible king and his people. ”

“ But those who have tried to do their best, and held fast to our Lord Jesus, and prayed Him to wash them clean in His blood, will be taken home for His sake. And they will have the happiest and most blessed home that ever can be in heaven. There will be all brightness, and no more pain, nor grief, nor sorrow; and the Lord shall wipe off all tears from all eyes; and there shall be gladness and joy for ever and ever.
The old earth will be burnt up; but there will be new heavens, and a new earth, all beautiful, with nothing that will hurt or spoil or fade, but all lovely and peaceful. ”

“ LAST Sunday you heard how God made the world, and put a man and woman to live in it. The man was named Adam; the woman was named Eve. God gave them a beautiful garden to live in, full of trees and flowers; and they had no pain, no trouble, nothing to vex them. Only one thing God told them: there was one tree whose fruit they must not eat. They might eat the fruit of all the other trees, but not of that one. As long as they obeyed, all was well and happy with them; but if they ate it they would die. But a bad spirit came and took the shape of the serpent, and talked to Eve. ”

“ It was the village of Bethlehem, the place from which David had been called away long ago, from feeding his father's sheep, to come and be king of Israel. Why should Zerubabel care for that little piece of ground more than for Solomon's palace, that was so glorious? One reason was, that the Prophet Micah had said, "But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be Ruler in Israel; whose goings have been from everlasting." ”

“ There was another god called Baal, to whom they set up great images, and feasted in his honor; and a goddess, whom they called the queen of heaven, of Ashtoreth. Women used to offer cakes to her, and dance in honor of her, for they thought she sent the moon to shine on them.
Now, the Israelites were not to worship any of these false gods. They were to remember how they heard the Only True God speaking to them out of the cloud upon the mountain, and telling them, "I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have no other gods but Me." ”

“ While Jerusalem was being besieged, Ezekiel, at Babylon, drew the picture of the town on a tile, and shut it in with a wall, and lay watching it, and weighing out a little bit of bad bread for himself to eat every day, that the other Jews who were with him might know what was going on among their brethren at Jerusalem, as God told him.
And in a vision he saw the angels come and mark in their foreheads all that were good, that they might not be hurt in the siege; while the bad would die by sword, and hunger, and sickness. So it is still, God saves His own good ones. ”

“ SO we see Joseph a slave. A slave is a servant who belongs to his master, as his cows and horses do; he gets no wages, and cannot go away, but is bought and sold like cattle.
Think of poor Joseph. He was used to live as the son of a great rich prince, wearing a dress of many bright colors, with many servants, and no one to obey but his kind fond father ”

“ They came by night, and when Elisha's servant looked out in the morning, he saw horses and chariots all round the place. He was afraid, and cried out "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" But Elisha said to him, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." And he prayed that the young man's eyes might be opened that he might see: and so they were—to see the whole mountain round about full of chariots of fire and horses of fire; many, many more than the Syrians had, and all come to take care of Elisha. ”

“ WHEN THOU WALKEST THROUGH THE FIRE, THOU SHALT NOT BE BURNED;
NEITHER SHALL THE FLAME KINDLE UPON THEE
But they stood up boldly, and said, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O King! But if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
The king was very angry at this brave answer. He had the furnace made seven times hotter than usual; and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were thrown into it, tied hand and foot ”

“ IF King Joram had been good he would have had no troubles; but he would let his mother Jezebel worship her false gods, so God sent the Syrians against him again. And they came all round Samaria, and shut it in so close that nobody could get out; and all the food was eaten up, so that even such food as a donkey's head was so dear that hardly anybody could buy it, and everyone was getting starved. Joram was so angry, that he said at last, in his wickedness, he would cut off Elisha's head the next day. ”

“ He is called a Star, because He came to give us light; and you know a star showed the way to the place where He was born. And a sceptre is the rod a king carries in his hand. So when He was called the Sceptre, it meant that He should be a King.
Only think how angry Balak was, when Balaam could not curse, but only blessed. I wish he had been afraid, and seen it was not God's will that he should hurt the Israelites; but instead of that, he went on in his wickedness, and was miserably killed at last; for God took care of His people, and would let no one do them any harm. ”

“ WHEN David was king his people did wrong again; and there came a plague upon them, so that a great number of them died all through the land of Israel.
David and his priests, and all the good men, fasted and prayed, and entreated that God would turn His anger away. And while they were praying, David saw the Destroying Angel standing with his drawn sword over Jerusalem; but the plague had not begun there. Then David prayed the more; and God made known to him that he must offer up a sacrifice on the threshing-floor of Ornan, just by Jerusalem, and then the plague should be stopped. ”

“ They quarrelled among themselves a great deal. One set, who were called Pharisees, were very proud and hard-hearted; and another set, who were called the Sadducees, would not believe or obey any of the Bible that was written after the time of Moses—none of the Prophets nor of the Psalms.
These two sets quarrelled so much that they allowed a fierce strange nation to come in and make themselves their masters. These were the Romans, whose city was Rome, in Italy. They were fierce soldiers, and wanted to make the world all their own. ”

“ So the king took him out of prison, and made him a great lord; and he set to work to buy the corn that was over and above what people wanted to eat in the years of plenty, that he might store it up against the years when the corn would not grow.
So when the bad harvest began, Joseph had plenty of corn, and he sold it for the king to all who wanted it. The famine was not only in Egypt, but in all the countries round; and by-and-by Joseph saw, among the people that came to buy, ten of his own brothers—the same who had sold him for a slave.
He knew them, for they still looked like shepherds ”

“ Far away in the East, God showed a bright, beautiful star to some wise men, and taught their hearts that it was the sign that the great King was born.
They set out on their journey to Judea, to see and honor Him; and when they came, they asked, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship Him."
This made Herod afraid, for he thought this must be a king who would take his kingdom from him. He made the learned men among the Jews look out in the prophecies where Christ should be born. ”

“ THE Lesson this morning told the sad history of how Adam and Eve did the very thing that God forbade; so that He drove them out of the Garden of Eden, and sin and death came into the world.
After that they had children. Some were good, but not so good as Adam and Eve had been at first; and some were bad. And as time went on the bad ones grew worse, and the good ones were tempted, and many of them grew wicked too. And so all the world was getting wicked, and God saw nothing but evil when He looked down on it. ”

“ Jehu shot an arrow, and it struck Joram, so that he sank down in his chariot and died.
Then Jehu went on into the town; and Jezebel thought she would still try to make friends with the people; so, instead of mourning for her son, she painted her face, and put on a headdress, and looked out at a window. Jehu said, "Who is on my side? who?" And some of the servants looked out. He said, "Throw her down." So the servants threw Jezebel out of the window, and her blood sprinkled on Jehu's horses. But he went on, and went into the palace, and was made king, and had a feast. ”

“ The king was very sorry when he heard who it was, for this man who would not leave off saying his prayers was the man he trusted most in all the kingdom. It was Daniel, one of the captive Jews, son or brother to one of the last kings of Jerusalem. He had been taken to Babylon when he was a very little boy, and now he was quite an old man, but he had never ceased praying to the great God of Heaven, and he was not going to leave off now. He was a prophet of the Lord, and very wise, and he was one of the king's very best advisers, so Darius was greatly grieved when he was accused. ”

“ AFTER the nine sad plagues that had come upon the Egyptians—the blood for water, the frogs, the lice, the flies, the cattle plague, the boils, the hail, the locusts, the darkness—there was to be still one plague more, the last and worst. That would make the Egyptians let the people of Israel go, so they must be ready.
There should be a terrible night. God's holy angel would pass over the whole land of Egypt that night, and in each house [Pg 74] of the Egyptians he would slay the eldest son of the family. ”

“ They cried out that they wanted something instead of Moses, whom they had lost.
So they took all their gold ear-rings and melted them, and made an image of a golden calf. And then these foolish wicked people began to feast and dance, and worship this golden idol.
Moses was coming down Mount Sinai with the two Tables of the Commandments in his hands. And first he heard a shouting and singing; then he saw the people leaping and dancing, and the great golden idol standing in the midst. Then he was sure it was of no use to bring them the Commandments if they minded them no better. ”

“ But King Ahab's wife, whose name was Jezebel, was a heathen woman, and she would worship Baal, and did not choose to believe in the true God. And she was very angry with Elijah, and sent men out everywhere to put him to death. Elijah was obliged to flee far away for fear of her; and he went out into the wilderness, and sat down under a juniper tree; and there he was so sad, to think that all he had done was of no use, that he requested for himself that he might die, for he could do no more good with these wicked people. ”

“ Perhaps he stopped to wash his face in the clear well of Bethlehem before he went up to the place of the feast, the same place where Boaz had brought his bride Ruth, for Jesse, David's father was Ruth's grandson.
There stood the Prophet, with his long white hair flowing down; and as soon as young David came in, he stepped forward with a horn in his hand, and sweet-smelling oil of olives mixed with incense was flowing upon David's golden hair. He was the Anointed of the Lord. In time to come he would be king, but he must wait long and patiently first. ”

“ The mist and fog rise up from the earth and make the clouds that take strange shapes, sometimes dark and full of rain to water the earth, sometimes shining white, or pink and golden with morning or evening light. ”

“ WHEN that fierce soldier, Jehu, was made king, the men of Israel cut off the heads of all Ahab's sons and grandsons, and made them up into two heaps at the city gates; and all the people who worshipped Baal were shut up in his temple, and every one of them killed. It is very sad and terrible; but God had commanded that people who prayed to idols should not live, because they taught the rest of the Israelites to be wicked too. When we hear about it, we must recollect that it is a fearful thing to turn away from serving God, and that He is sure to punish those who will not worship Him. ”

“ But a great fierce king named Sennacherib brought an army into his land, and ruined all his towns and villages except Jerusalem, and shut up Hezekiah in his town, so that his people could not dare to come out.
And Sennacherib wrote a letter to tell Hezekiah that it was no use to hope to escape, he was coming to take away the Jews and ruin Jerusalem; and this wicked man even said that Hezekiah need not think that his God would save him, for no nation had ever yet been saved by its gods, so the God of Hezekiah could not help him. ”

“ We count the months by the changes in the moon; and our earth's journey around the sun marks our years and seasons. We all rejoice in a bright sunny day, though the sun is too bright and glorious for us to bear to gaze at him ”

“ WHEN the Israelites came out of Egypt they had a long journey to go, through a dreary, lonely wilderness. Moses and his brother Aaron led them; and God took care of them, and fed them, and kept them safe.
But there were some wicked men, named Dathan and Abiram, who were tired of the wilderness, and were angry at having Moses for their leader and master, though God had made him lead them, and had done so much for them. They said they were as good as Moses, and that he should not be their prince. They did not care for God having spoken by him. ”