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Men of the Bible

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greatness of his house, and, as often happens in such marriages, he forgot to ask for a certificate of character, forgot to ask what sort of mother he was providing for his children. She came with all her meretricious splendour covering one of the most fiendish natures that ever wore a woman's form. She developed, if she did not bring with her, all imaginable vices--her vindictive passion revelled in blood; her religion was the filthiest licentiousness; her beauty became the painted face of a common harlot. Her figure stands forth in the Bible as the very worst exemplification of the dark possibilities of human nature. Tennyson says men do not mount as high as the best of women--but they scarce can sink as low as the worst. For men at most differ as heaven and earth; but women, worst and best, as heaven and hell. And this woman became, alas, the mother of kings; and all who went forth from her inherited her nature, and forgot nothing of her training. For several generations the taint of her evil influence was felt throughout the whole court life of Israel, and the licentious abominations which she had introduced infected the whole national life. Ahab married for money and position, and this was what came of it. Her influence extended also to the southern kingdom of Judah. Jehoram, King of Judah, must needs marry Ahab's daughter, Athaliah, who was the exact counterpart of her mother, Jezebel. Another wedding in which morals and religion were sacrificed on the altar of gain--for by means of it a small kingdom was to be cemented in alliance with a greater, and another rich dowry to be secured. And the same dreary results followed--a court corrupted with all manner of impurity, sons and daughters initiated into all the mysteries of wickedness, demoralisation spreading all around. In this atmosphere Ahaziah was trained. His mother's name, says the record briefly, was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri, that is, the direct daughter of Jezebel. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly--wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, for they were his counsellors after the death of his father to his destruction. What else could result in a home of which Athaliah was the head, in which the main training and influence were supplied by one of Jezebel's brood. The significant feature in all these Chronicles is the immense influence of women in shaping the lives and characters of kings. The men seem to have little to do with it; the women are almost supreme. Sons do not take after their fathers but after their mothers. Again and again we read of a good king who had a wicked father--Josiah, Hezekiah, and others. They shake off their evil inheritance; they refuse to follow in their fathers' steps; they destroy idolatry, and endeavour to redeem Israel from its iniquity. But whenever this is the case you do not look far without discovering the cause. A good mother has been at work--woman's gracious influence has counteracted against the pernicious example of the father. And, on the other hand, we have a long list of vile and idolatrous kings, whose fathers were either comparatively worthy, or full of downright godliness, and then, invariably, there is some evil-minded royal consort at the back of it. Whenever we can get into the secrets of court life, we find that the character of the wife determines the moral weight and form of the royal children. It is her training that shapes the men. How could it be otherwise indeed? What time had those kings to spend on home matters, what with their fighting, judging, governing, and attending to all the affairs of empire? How could they do a father's work and watch the training of the future kings? It was left to the mothers, and unhappy they who had mothers like Ahaziah's. And is not this an everlasting story, true to-day as it was in those old days? It is the mother's hand mainly that shapes men for good or evil. Women more than men make the atmosphere of home--the atmosphere which young lives breathe, and breathing never lose. The wise woman buildeth her house--the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. What time does a father spend in disciplining the moral and spiritual nature of his children? That has to be done in the hours when he is toiling in the warehouse, or resting wearily after the labours of the day, or surely it is not done at all. From a mother the child receives all its early religious thoughts. By her the Bible stories are taught, and through her lips the good book comes to be loved. None can do it except her. It is her eyes that watch every moral movement in the young life--every sign of change--every incipient error--every beginning of good and evil habit. No eyes can detect these things as quickly and as surely as hers. And if she is too careless to discover them, they will go unobserved and unchecked. Unhappy is the mother who gives to society, or to friendship, or to pleasure the time which she owes to her sons and daughters, for she will have to reap in vain regrets the penalty of her neglect. How rarely do good and true women and men go forth from a home in which a mother has been too busy with the giddy affairs of the pleasurable world to teach and pray with her children. Still more rarely do permanently evil and incorrigible lives go forth from a home in which a noble and religious mother has made it the chief business of her life to mould and train her children in paths of pure thought and reverent purpose. There is no religious work which a woman can do that equals this in importance, and none which secures such sure and blessed results. That, then, is the main thought suggested by these chapters--the measureless influence of women in forming lives for evil or for good. Then comes the only other thing that we are told about this Ahaziah--that he was killed because he happened to be found in evil company. He lived badly because he followed the counsels of his mother, we read, and he died suddenly and tragically because he endeavoured to be on very friendly terms with his mother's relatives. He was King of Judah, and Judah with all its sins still worshipped God and was comparatively free from idolatry. But Israel, over which Jehoram, his mother's brother ruled, was given up to all the

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