The treasures of the Temple, those vessels, ornaments, and trophies which were sacred to its use, or placed there in commemoration of victories and in honor of the Lord, were repeatedly seized by the kings and given to their enemies, or used for private purposes, and, in some instances, removed to give place for idolatrous practices. Parts of the Temple considered sacred to the name of Jehovah were desecrated by altars built for the worship of the hosts of heaven, and graven images were erected upon the Temple grounds, in defiance of the law. =4. The kings themselves= frequently gave public examples of their contempt for Jehovah by the service and worship of the gods of surrounding nations, by erecting temples and altars and by planting groves upon high places and setting up images of Baal and Ashtoreth throughout the land and in prominent towns, so that the people were constantly drawn into idolatry and their children made to dwell in the presence and under the influence of idolatrous emblems, as seen throughout the kingdom. =5. The above mentioned facts= are specially applicable to twelve kings out of the twenty of Judah, but the character of the reigns of Israel was even worse. Of its nineteen kings, not one was free from idolatry. At the very beginning of their history the first king, Jeroboam, who had spent about five years in Egypt at the court of Shishak, erected a golden calf at Bethel and one at Dan in the north, and invited the people to worship at these shrines in preference to the “house of the Lord,” the Temple, at Jerusalem. =6. This worship of the golden calf= was a repetition of the same worship which was performed 500 years before at Mt. Sinai, soon after the Israelites came out of Egypt, and Jeroboam the king in instituting it repeated the words which were uttered at Mt. Sinai,[94] namely, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” Exod. 32:4. =7. The selection of the calf= was suggested by the prominence which that animal,[95] as the symbol of divine power, attained in Egypt. The costly adornment and preservation of the sacred living bull, or Apis, and the magnificent funeral ceremonies and entombment of the dead Apis are frequently alluded to on the monuments of Egypt. Long before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt the veneration of the sacred bull had been exhibited in services and obsequies, so general throughout Lower Egypt, and so imposing, that the effect upon the population must have been far more solemn and impressive than anything we can conceive of at the present day. The costly burial places, called “Serapeums,” some of which yet exist, and the granite sarcophagi show beyond any question how reverent and imposing the worship of the bull must have been.