horns of the altar_, which men grasp in their last despair, _shall be smitten and fall to the earth. And I will strike the winter-house upon the summer-house, and the ivory houses shall perish, yea, swept away shall be houses many--oracle of Jehovah._ But the luxury of no civilisation can be measured without its women, and to the women of Samaria Amos now turns with the most scornful of all his words. _Hear this word_--this for you--_kine of Bashan that are in the mount of Samaria, that oppress the poor, that crush the needy, that say to their lords, Bring, and let us drink. Sworn hath the Lord Jehovah by His holiness, lo, days are coming when there shall be a taking away of you with hooks, and of the last of you with fish-hooks._ They put hooks[279] in the nostrils of unruly cattle, and the figure is often applied to human captives;[280] but so many should these cattle of Samaria be that for the _last of them fish-hooks_ must be used. _Yea, by the breaches_ in the wall of the stormed city _shall ye go out, every one headlong, and ye shall be cast ..._[281] _oracle of Jehovah_. It is a cowherd's rough picture of women: a troop of kine--heavy, heedless animals, trampling in their anxiety for food upon every frail and lowly object in the way. But there is a prophet's insight into character. Not of Jezebels, or Messalinas, or Lady-Macbeths is it spoken, but of the ordinary matrons of Samaria. Thoughtlessness and luxury are able to make brutes out of women of gentle nurture, with homes and a religion.[282] * * * * *