and loaded himself with spoil, came back swelling with the pride of his fresh victories, and led his army in full march to Jerusalem. He who had defied all the gods of all the nations, saying, "Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Heva, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? who are they of all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand?" This man, full of blasphemy, and furious with presumption, came up against the holy city to destroy it with an utter desolation; but he found that his invincible army whom he had left under the command of Rabshakeh, had in one night-the very first night of the siege lost one hundred and eighty-five thousand men, with their captains, and generals, slain by a blast from that omnipotent God whom he had defied.*

Covered with shame and confusion,

* Sir Robert Porter in describing the Samiell,-Baud Semoon,-or pestilential wind of Mesopotamia, conjectures that it might have been the agent employed in the destruction of Sennacherib's army. This wind does not come in continued long currents, but in gusts at different intervals, each blast lasting several minutes, and passing along with the

Sennacherib returned with the pitiful remnant of his army to his own country, where the haughty and imperious infidel, unable to support the intolerable disgrace and dishonour of his defeat, gave scope to his wrath in acts of atrocious cruelty and tyranny against his unoffending subjects. The effects of his ungovernable passion fell with most unmitigated severity on the captive Jews and Israelites, whom he had carried away from their native land. These he massacred in great numbers every day. His odious conduct at length rendered him so insupportable to his subjects, that two of his own sons conspired against him, and slew him in the presence of his god Nisroch, as he lay prostrate before him in his temple. The parricides fled afterwards into Armenia, and left the kingdom to their younger brother Esarhaddon, who succeeded to the vacant throne.

rapidity of lightning. No one dare stir from their houses while this invisible flame is sweeping over the face of the country. We can easily understand how the Almighty might by this natural agent, brought from afar, make it the brand of death, by which the destroying angel wrought the destruction of Sennacherib's army-Porter's Travels in Persia, vol. ii. p. 230.

It is probable that while Sennacherib was ravaging the land of Egypt, as we have already related, Hezekiah, king of Judah, fell sick of that illness, the circumstances of which are so beautifully narrated in holy writ. And we may be permitted to interrupt for a moment the course of our history, were it only to give thanks to God for all the consolation which the church has derived, doubtless, in every age, from the pathos and tenderness with which the sacred historian has related the feelings and sentiments of the prince, on this occasion.

In point of doctrine we all believe that the Lord, the Lord God is merciful and gracious, abundant in goodness, ready to forgive, and full of compassion, but how much more precious does this truth become, when the living exhibition of it is placed before us by some striking example. Thus, in the case of Hezekiah, when we behold a picture so full of the languor of sickness-the tears of penitence-the weakness of humanity and the supplications of faith, we enter with intense sympathy into the sorrows of the man,—we feel as if the message had come home

to our own souls, "Set thine house in order for thou shalt die, and not live,"-we are ready to say, "I shall go to the gates of the grave-I am deprived of the residue of my years-I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world -I mourn as a dove mine eyes fail with looking upward-O Lord! I am oppressed, undertake for me!" And in such circumstances, feeling that he divine fiat had gone forth, we do not wonder that "Hezekiah wept sore."

It was probably after an interview with Isaiah, in which the royal invalid had expressed the above or similar sentiments, that the prophet had hardly left the sick man's chamber, and crossed the court of the palace, before he received a mandate to return with a message to his master, couched in terms of such mercy and grace as could proceed alone from Him, whose ineffable love is in perpetual exercise towards the children of men. «Turn again, and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer

I have seen thy tears,—behold I will heal thee -and I will deliver thee and this city out of the

hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake."

How strongly are the tender mercies of Jehovah towards his worshipper, contrasted with the powerlessness of the idol-god of the king of Assyria. Nisroch was unable to protect his prostrate devotee, even in his own capital, from the hand of his own sons, while engaged in an act of superstitious adoration! But the living God, whom Sennacherib had "sent to reproach,” preserved his pious servant in the midst of the unnumbered hosts of an insolent and infuriated conqueror, while the infatuated heathen falls under the poignard of the parricide, at the very horns of the altar. Thus we see in this history, not only a most affecting exhibition of the goodness of God, but a most wonderful instance of his power. In one night, or even in a watch of the night, he can accomplish a work of destruction which, in magnitude, so far transcends all that the strength, valour, and energies of the greatest empire could achieve, that their mightiest exploits when com

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