The arrangements are all made for political revolution. The military come and take full possession of the Temple, swear loyalty to the boy Joash, and then stand around for his defense. See the sharpened swords and burnished shields! Every thing is ready. Now Joash, half affrighted at the armed tramp of his defenders, scared at the vociferation of his admirers, is brought forth in full regalia. The scroll of authority is put into his hands, the coronet of government is put on his brow, and the glad people clap and wave, huzza and trumpet. Athaliah is aroused, and asks: “What is that? What is that sound over there in the Temple?” She hurries out to see, and on the way they meet her and say: “Why, haven’t you heard? You thought you had slain all the royal family, but Joash has come to light.” Then the queenly murderess, frantic with rage, laid hold on her mantle and tore it to tatters, and cried out until she foamed at the mouth: “You have no right to crown my grandson. You have no right to take the government from my shoulders. Treason! Treason!” While she stood there, making this cry, the military started for her arrest, and she took a short cut through a back door of the Temple and ran through the royal stables; but the battle-axes of the military fell on her in the barn-yard, and for many a day, when the horses were being unloosed from the chariot after drawing out young Joash, the fiery steeds would snort and rear while passing the place, as they smelt the taint. The first thought which I hand you from this subject is that the extermination of righteousness is an impossibility. When a woman is good she is apt to be very good, and when she is bad she is apt to be very bad; and this Athaliah was one of the latter sort. She would exterminate the last scion of the house of David, through whom Jesus was to come. There was plenty of work for embalmers and undertakers. She would clear the land of all God-fearing and God-loving people. She would put an end to every thing that could in any wise interfere with her imperial criminality. Athaliah folds her hands and says: “The work is done; it is completely done.” Is it? In the swaddling clothes of that church apartment are wrapped the cause of God and the cause of good government. That is the scion of the house of David; it is Joash, the Christian reformer; it is Joash, the friend of God; it is Joash, the demolisher of Baalitish idolatry. Rock him tenderly; nurse him gently. Athaliah, you may kill all the other children, but you can not kill him. Eternal defenses are thrown all around him, and this clergyman’s wife, Jehosheba, will snatch him up from the palace nursery, and will run up and down with him into the house of the Lord, and there she will hide him for six years, and at the end of that time he will come forth for your dethronement and utter obliteration. DAVID. David, the shepherd boy, is watching his father’s sheep.