fruits of righteousness, and the Christian is weaned for ever from the unprofitable service of sin. Unhappily the repentance inspired by trouble and distress is not always real and permanent. Many will humble themselves before the Lord in order to avert imminent ruin, and will forsake Him when the danger has passed away. Apparently Rehoboam soon fell away again into sin, for the final judgment upon him is, “He did that which was evil, because he set not his heart to seek Jehovah.”(336) David in his last prayer had asked for a “perfect heart” for Solomon, but he had not been able to secure this blessing for his grandson, and Rehoboam was “the foolishness of the people, one that had no understanding, who turned away the people through his counsel.”(337) Rehoboam was succeeded by his son Abijah, concerning whom we are told in the book of Kings that “he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as the heart of David his father.” The chronicler omits this unfavourable verdict; he does not indeed classify Abijah among the good kings by the usual formal statement that “he did that which was good and right in the eyes of Jehovah,” but Abijah delivers a hortatory speech and by Divine assistance obtains a great victory over Jeroboam. There is not a suggestion of any evil-doing on the part of Abijah; and yet we gather from the history of Asa that in Abijah’s reign the cities of Judah were given up to idolatry, with all its paraphernalia of “strange altars, high places, Asherim, and sun-images.” As in the case of Solomon, so here, the chronicler has sacrificed even the consistency of his own narrative to his care for the reputation of the house of David. How the verdict of ancient history upon Abijah came to be set aside we do not know. The charitable work of whitewashing the bad characters of history has always had an attraction for enterprising annalists; and Abijah was a more promising subject than Nero, Tiberius, or Henry VIII. The chronicler would rejoice to discover one more good king of Judah; but yet why should the record of Abijah’s sins be expunged, while Ahaziah and Amon were still held up to the execration of posterity? Probably the chronicler was anxious that nothing should mar the effect of his narrative of Abijah’s victory. If his later sources had recorded anything equally creditable of Ahaziah and Amon, he might have ignored the judgment of the book of Kings in their case also.