Other evils arose out of these abuses. The princes of Judah sought to enrich themselves by all possible means, and to extend their territories by obtaining possession of the pasture lands, vineyards, and meadows of the country people. Things seem to have come to such a pass that the nobles and elders employed slaves, or the poor whom they had reduced to slavery, to cultivate their vast estates. They did not hesitate to make serfs of the children of those poor who were unable to pay their debts, and force them to tread the mill. To this cruel injustice, they soon added the vices of debauchery. They arose early in the morning and had recourse to the wine-cup, and till late at night they inflamed their blood with wine. At such entertainments they had the noisy music of flutes, trumpets, harps, and lutes. This was an innocent amusement compared with the excesses resulting therefrom. But the severe morality enjoined by the Sinaitic law was hostile to dissipation. As long as this law held sway, the love of licentious pleasures could not be fully gratified. But this restriction disappeared, when Judah entered into connection with the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. Here, and especially in the capital Samaria, the greatest excesses wore, so to say, a sacred character, forming, as they did, a constituent part of the Baal worship. Here there were temple priestesses in numbers; sacrifices were offered on the summits of the mountains and hills, whilst vice held its orgies in the shade of the oaks and terebinths. So great had been its progress, that Israelitish daughters unblushingly followed the example of their fathers. Wine and depravity had so vitiated the minds of the great, that they consulted blocks of wood and sticks as oracles concerning the future. From these nobles of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes,--"the drunkards of Ephraim,"--the princes of Judah learnt how to follow their evil desires without restraint. Divine service in the Temple of Jerusalem was, it is true, officially recognised; but this did not prevent the princes from following their own mode of worship privately. The brotherly fusion of Israel and Judah chiefly resulted in making idolatry, dissipation, intoxication, pride, and scorn of what was right, the common character of both kingdoms.