firstborn of cattle, the produce of this tithe being devoted to a sort of family festival celebrated in the Holy Place.** The priest was thus placed on the same footing as the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, and his influence was but little greater than it had been in the early days of the monarchy.  It was to the prophet and not to the priest that the duty belonged of directing the public conscience in all those cases for which the law had made no provision.  “I will put My words into his mouth (said Jahveh), and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.  And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.  But the prophet which shall speak a word presumptuously in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.  And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?—­when a prophet speaketh in the name of Jahveh, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jahveh hath not spoken:  the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.”

     * Deut. xvi. 1-17.

     ** Deut. xviii. 1-8; as to the share in the triennial tithe,
     cf.  Deut. xiv. 28, 29; xxvi. 12, 13.

When the reading of the law had ended, Josiah implored the people to make a covenant with Jahveh; that is to say, “to walk after Jahveh, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all their hearts and all their souls, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book.”  The final words, which lingered in every ear, contained imprecations of even more terrible and gloomy import than those with which the prophets had been wont to threaten Judah.  “If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jahveh thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; then all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.  Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.  Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.  Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock....  Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build an house, and shalt not dwell therein:  thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not use the fruit thereof.  Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof....  Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people; and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day:  and there shall be naught in the power of thine hand....  Jahveh shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shalt not regard the person of the old, nor