As with the purely religious teachings of the older prophets, the people could not quite understand Micah. They believed that religion consisted in offering the prescribed sacrifices regularly, and that, in having fulfilled this obligation they had performed their religious duties. The average Judean's idea of religion, of the relationship between man and God, was that of a _bargain_ between man and God; so many sacrifices brought to God, so many favors from God, in return; the more precious and numerous the sacrificial oils and burnt offerings, even to one's children, offered to God, the more precious and numerous would be the blessings from God. To this false idea Micah replies, with irony that stings, in these words: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, And bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" To which God answers, through Micah, in the world-famed and unparalleled definition of religion: "It hath been declared unto thee, O man, what is good: Yea, what doth the Lord require of thee, But to do justice, and to love mercy, And to walk humbly with thy God?" THE PROPHET OF WOE AND HOPE CHAPTER I. _The Escape._ The entirely unexpected assassination of King Amon, of Judah, in the year 639, surprised and appalled the entire country, as well as Jerusalem, the capital. King Amon had succeeded his father, Manasseh, to the throne of Judah but two years before. He had had no chance to show the character of man he was and the type of a ruler he would be, and yet, without apparent knowledge on anybody's part that a conspiracy was brewing among the princes of the royal palace itself, Amon's life was snatched away in a most cruel manner. The evening of the tragedy in the king's household was no different than the many others that had preceded it during the time of Amon's reign. The king and queen had just said good-night to their eight-year-old son Josiah and his little friend Jeremiah, who had spent the day with the young prince, and had sent them to bed, in the wing of the palace occupied by the princes, in care of Ebed-melech, a young Ethiopian slave, of whom both boys were very fond. Jeremiah, who was the son of the high priest Hilkiah, lived in Anathoth, the exclusive suburb to the north of Jerusalem, where the wealthy, priestly families had their homes. It was after much begging on the part of Josiah with his royal father, and on the part of Jeremiah with his mother, that permission was given Jeremiah to accompany his father into Jerusalem and to spend the day and night with Josiah in the palace.