of the people. In this he would have the inspiration and support of the statesman-prophet Isaiah, who according to a Jewish tradition was his tutor in his younger days; but also as king he could furnish an important stimulus on his own part. We have noted the pleas of both Micah and Isaiah for a plain and common-sense religion, a religion that should A Religious be neither an ostentatious luxury nor a selfClearing-up tormenting burden (Mic. vi, 8; Isa. i, 16). Both pleas were urged in the face of the religious chaos of the time; the people, especially the upper classes, being infatuated with a complex syncretism of idolatries and superstitions imported from the surrounding nations (see Isa. ii, 6–9), and their moral intuitions darkened by mediumship and necromancy (cf. Isa. viii, 19-22). There was sore need of a religion of plain sense; and Hezekiah's sympathies were sincerely in that direction. He began, it would seem, with the inveterate old superstitions which had clung to the worship of the country people since the time of Moses. "He removed the high places," the historian says, "and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherah: and he brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan," that is, a piece of brass (2 Kings xviii, 4). This last item of his reform indicates his object to clear away excrescences of worship and call things by their right names, a step toward the honest view of life prophesied of the perfect realm wherein a king should reign in righteousness and princes rule in justice (Isa. xxxii, 4–8). It was, so far as it went, a movement toward both a religious and an intellectual clearing-up, an identification of religion with reason and sturdy sense. Reactions followed in the succeeding reign, for old errors and superstitions die hard; but the hidden effects of King Hezekiah's reform were as great in one way as were those of the more famous reform under King Josiah in another.

Another important and very characteristic undertaking of King Hezekiah is recorded by the Chronicler, who derives much of his later-written history from the Temple archives. It was a reorganization, or perhaps we may better say a resuscitation, of the Temple service, since according to the same historian King Ahaz had shut the Temple doors (2 Chron. xxviii, 24). In connection with this work he instituted a great Passover celebration, the most notable since Solomon (2 Chron. xxx, 26)- a kind of reunion, or Old Home Week, for Israel, which was observed with such zest that the whole service was repeated (2 Chron. xxx, 23). To this reunion the people of the northern kingdom and of the region beyond Jordan were invited—another indication of Hezekiah's largeness of heart and good will — and a few complied, though the invitation was generally scorned (2 Chron. xxx, I, 10-12). This, though somewhat crude and tentative, was a step toward that centralization of worship for which King Josiah's time, a century later, was better prepared; it was also a step toward that unity of the spirit which, beginning with a remnant, was destined some day to be the strength of Israel. And it was for such elemental virtues-unity of spirit, clarity of mind, loyalty to Jehovah that Hezekiah afforded to his people, high and lowly, the stimulus of a royal patron.

III

Treasures from the Older Literature. Of the general literary activity of King Hezekiah's time not much is said; enough, however, to warrant a reasonable inference. A time which could support the wonderful creative utterance of an Isaiah, and which could respond though imperfectly to Hezekiah's mission of tolerance and good sense, would not be barren of literary fruitfulness and appreciation. There is reason to believe that in his love of liberal learning as

well as of religion, especially as a student and collector of the older stores of literature, he made his reign a period of intellectual activity beyond what had been known since the days of Solomon, and gave an impulse which during the succeeding century rivaled to a notable degree the matured scholarship of the Chaldean exile.

In an earlier chapter, tracing the primitive differentiation of literary activities,1 we noted two native forms, the song and the mashal; forms inchoate and undergoing oral shaping in David's and Solomon's time, but destined in their finished development as psalms and proverbs to bear through centuries the stamp of these monarchs' names. We come in sight of these psalms and proverbs in King Hezekiah's reign and find that he and the men of his time bear an important part, perhaps a determinative part, in their collection and preservation.

The Collect

According to the Chronicler, when King Hezekiah rededicated the temple, the liturgical basis of the service was a full choral and orchestral accompaniment to the ing of Psalms elaborate ritual of the sacrifice (see 2 Chron. xxix, 25-28). The ceremonial seems to have been observed with intensified zest from the long desuetude into which such services had fallen. Its prelude had been the reopening and cleansing of the sanctuary which Ahaz had so profaned; and itself was the prelude to the Passover season already mentioned, wherein an effort was made at an all-Israel reunion. All this was like a return to first principles; like a recourse to the wholesome traditions and personalities of the past. The orchestra, made up of the musical guilds of long standing, used the time-honored "instruments of David"; which instruments, it would seem, had made his name as famous for musical and inventive skill as is the name of Stradivarius or Guarnerius among music lovers

1 See "Evolution of Literary Types and Functions," pp. 86 ff., above.

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to-day (cf. Amos vi, 5). For the vocal part of the service the Levites were instructed to "sing praises unto Jehovah with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer" (2 Chron. xxix, 30). This introduces us to the two men who beyond all others are the classics in psalmody,- that blending of music with public praise and worship which was the distinctive art of the Hebrews. The two names had been associated since before the Temple was built, when at the first dedicatory service the national worship was inaugurated in a tent (1 Chron. xvi, 7). As late as the dedication of the rebuilt city wall after the return from exile they were still remembered: "For in the days of David and Asaph of old there was a chief of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God" (Neh. xii, 46). Thus in a very intimate sense the most revered king of Israel was identified with his people's common worship and sentiment.

This elaborate service of King Hezekiah's first year was, to be sure, a unique occasion; but it inaugurated a regular system of worship in which the king himself could emulate his great ancestor David and be to his people as David was. That he came to set great store by the Temple services with their musical accompaniments is indicated by his question when Isaiah promised him recovery from his sickness, "What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Jehovah?" and by the Psalm he wrote (Isa. xxxviii, 10-20), which ends,

Jehovah is ready to save me;

Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments
All the days of our life in the house of Jehovah.

He was of a pietistic and contemplative nature; devoted accordingly to the domestic upbuilding of his realm, and to sharing in the peaceful and religious pursuits of his common people, rather than to the diplomatic hazards and intrigues of his troubled time. One seems to get a reflection

of his mood in Psalm cxx, 5, 6, which I am disposed to date in his time:

Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
That I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
My soul hath long had her dwelling
With him that hateth peace.

I am for peace :

But when I speak, they are for war.

The Book of Psalms, as we have it complete before us, is the Hebrew anthem book. The songs contained in it were made for use in the Temple service; but whether exclusively for the second Temple, as critics maintain, or for public worship from the beginning, is at least a debatable question. Tradition maintains inveterately that David composed songs for public worship from the time that he brought the ark up from the house of Obed-Edom to the tent on Mount Zion and installed Asaph as the leader of his primitive orchestra ("Asaph with cymbals sounding loud," I Chron. xvi, 5). Concerning the development of psalmody, however, from Solomon to the exile, the history is silent; it is equally silent too concerning the development of worship and religious thought. Like our modern. collections of hymns, the Psalms reflect the devotional needs of the congregation, for morning and evening worship, for spring and autumn festival occasions, and the like matters of regular recurrence; but besides this they reflect also certain great situations and events, such as dedications, the coronation or marriage of a king, as also times of national distress or peril, and times of deliverance from siege or captivity. Individual experience or meditation also plays a large, perhaps a leading, part therein, as some large personality expresses the deep emotions of his heart. Such songs, it is natural to believe, were continually being added to, from sources both within and without the Temple, and from composers both ancient and modern.