[311] Merchandise had hitherto been considered discreditable for a pure Jew, so that a trader is called a Canaanite (Hos. xii. 7, 8). [312] See the writer's _Minor Prophets_ ("Men of the Bible" Series), pp. 231-243. CHAPTER XVIII _AMOS, HOSEA, AND THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL_ 2 KINGS xiv. 23-29; xv. 8-12 "In them is plainest taught and easiest learnt What makes a nation happy and keeps it so, What ruins kingdoms and lays cities flat." MILTON, _Paradise Regained_. "We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of Fate: But the soul is still oracular: amid the market's din List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within, 'They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin.'" LOWELL. Amos and Hosea are the two earliest prophets whose "burdens" have come down to us. From them we gain a near insight into the internal condition of Israel in this day of her prosperity. We see, first, that the prosperity was not unbroken. Though peace reigned, the people were not left to lapse unwarned into sloth and godlessness. The land had suffered from the horrible scourge of locusts, until every _carmel_--every garden of God on hill and plain--withered before them.[313] There had been widespread conflagrations;[314] there had been a visitation of pestilence; and, finally, there had been an earthquake so violent that it constituted an epoch from which dates were reckoned.[315] There were also two eclipses of the sun, which darkened with fear the minds of the superstitious.[316]