xv. A PO TTER Y MO UND. 273 



planation : " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, even so will 

 I break this people and this city." Surely no incident 

 could be more picturesque than this : no method of 

 instruction more graphic and telling ! The place in 

 which it occurred was one well calculated to increase 

 the impressiveness of the incident. It was on the top of 

 a conspicuous rock overhanging the Valley of Hinnom, 

 and commanding a fine view of the doomed city. All 

 the associations of the place were peculiarly terrible. 

 The Valley of Hinnom was the scene of some of the 

 most debasing orgies of paganism. Altars smoked there 

 to the gods of lust and cruelty in the near neighbour- 

 hood of God's holy shrine. Human sacrifices were 

 there offered to Baal and Moloch. Tender children 

 were made to pass through the sacred fires, and the cries 

 of their torment were drowned by the drums of Tophet. 

 In the days of Ahaz and Manasseh, all kinds of abomin- 

 ations were practised in the delirium of idolatry, and 

 human nature was outraged to the very utmost. To 

 stop these awful orgies, the pious Josiah sought to 

 desecrate the valley by making it a charnel house, or a 

 receptacle for the filth and garbage of the city. It be- 

 came afterwards the chief burying-ground of the inhabi- 

 tants, because there was no place elsewhere for the 

 overflowing dead ; and the prophets, in denouncing the 

 judgments of heaven upon the wickedness of the people, 

 declared that the whole valley would be turned into a 

 place of slaughter, where the carcases of the slain should 

 form food for the beasts of the field and the fowls of the 

 air, and the fire of God's wrath should consume them. 



