g disused are
imagined to have a specially national character and a peculiar
potency, and are fetched back from oblivion. The reform of Josiah (2
Kings xxii., xxiii.) was more thorough-going than that of Hezekiah.
He made an end of all the unseemly worships his predecessor had
encouraged at Jerusalem, so that nothing but the direct worship of
Jehovah was left. The strongest step he took, however, was that he
attempted to put an end altogether to the shrines at which local
worship had hitherto been conducted, thus making a clean sweep of the
idolatry of the rural districts. All this was done, we are told, in
accordance with a law-book which had been found in the temple by
certain high officials, and which, after duly consulting a prophetess
about the matter, Josiah brought into operation, and solemnly pledged
himself and his people to observe. We are in no doubt as to the
nature of this book. The book of Deuteronomy prescribes just such
reforms as Josiah carried out, and is generally allowed to have been
the written law which was promulgated on this occasion. Now
Deuteronomy, while incorporating no doubt many old laws, is in spirit
and effect a work of the prophetic school. Its moral teaching and its
exhortations to love Jehovah, and to be true to him alone, are quite
in the manner of Jeremiah, who was living in the reign of Josiah. And
the principal reform of Josiah, namely, the suppression of the local
worships, and the concentration of all worship at the temple of
Jerusalem alone, stands in the forefront of the special laws in
Deuteronomy. Those who aimed at the reform of religion, according to
the ideas of the prophets, had thought this out. The worship of the
one supreme God should take place, they had concluded, at one place
only, and should be national in its character; the whole people
should worship the one God at its capital. Provision was made that
this should not imply the deprivation of the dwellers in country
districts of the use of flesh meat. Formerly, every act of slaughter
was a sacrifice, and it was only in connection with a sacrifice that
this food could be enjoyed. But in future, animals may be slaughtered
at a distance from Jerusalem for food only, apart from any connection
with sacrifice. The promulgation of Deuteronomy is an important epoch
in the religion of Israel. That work is the first sacred book of
Israel; from this time forward Israel knows the will of Jehovah, not
only from the prophet's l