220 A PROPHET MARTYR. 



account of the people, who were always on their side, 

 they were frequently subjected to persecution. Urijah 

 fled from King Jehoiakim to Egypt ; armed men were 

 sent after him ; he was arrested, brought back and 

 killed. Zachariah was stoned to death in the courts 

 of the Temple. Jeremiah was formally tried, and was 

 acquitted ; but he had a narrow escape : he was led, 

 as he remarked, like a sheep to the slaughter. At 

 another time he was imprisoned ; at another time he 

 was let down by ropes into a dry well ; and there is a 

 tradition that he was stoned to death by the Jews in 

 Egypt after all. The nominal Isaiah chants the re- 

 quiem of such a martyr in a poem of exquisite beauty 

 and grandeur. The prophet is described as one of 

 hideous appearance, so that people hid their faces 

 from him : " his visage ivas marred more than any 

 man, and his form more than the sons of men." The 

 people rejected his mission and refused to acknowledge 

 him as a prophet. " He was despised and rejected of 

 men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 

 He was arraigned on a charge of false prophecy ; he 

 made no defence, and he was put to death. "He was 

 oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth : 

 he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a 

 sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not 

 his mouth. He tvas taken from the prison to the 

 judgment ; he was cut off from the land of the living." 

 It was believed by the Jews that the death of such a 

 man was accepted by God as a human sacrifice, an 

 atonement for the sins of the people, just as the priest 

 in the olden time heaped the sins of the people on the 

 scape-goat, and sent him out into the wilderness. 

 " He bare the sins of many, and made intercession 

 for the transgressors. The Lord hath laid on him 



