And what can be meant by the clause that the degraded priests of the old high places, though they were not allowed to serve at the great altar, yet "did eat of the _unleavened bread_ among their brethren"? Unleavened bread was only eaten at the Passover; and when there _was_ a Passover, was eaten by all alike. Perhaps the reading for "unleavened bread" should be (priestly) "portions"--a reading found by Geiger in an old manuscript. Continuing his work, Josiah defiled Tophet;[705] took away the horses given by the kings of Judah to the sun, which were stabled beside the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-Melech in the precincts;[706] and burnt the sun-chariots in the fire. He removed the altars to the stars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz,[707] and ground them to powder. He also destroyed those of his grandfather Manasseh in the two Temple courts--which we supposed to have been removed by Manasseh in his repentance--and threw the dust into the Kedron. He defiled the idolatrous shrines reared by Solomon to the deities of Sidon, Ammon, and Moloch, broke the pillars, cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with dead men's bones.[708] Travelling northwards, he burnt, destroyed, and stamped to powder the altars and the Asherim at Bethel, and burnt upon the altars the remains found in the sepulchres,[709] only leaving undisturbed the remains of the old prophet from Judah, and of the prophet of Samaria.[710] He then destroyed the other Samaritan shrines, exercising an undisputed authority over the Northern Kingdom. The mixed inhabitants did not interfere with his proceedings; and in the declining fortunes of Nineveh, the Assyrian viceroy--if there was one--did not dispute his authority. Lastly, in accordance with the fierce injunction of Deut. xvii. 2-5, "he slew all the priests of the high places" on their own altars, burnt men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem. It is very difficult, with the milder notions which we have learnt from the spirit of the Gospel, to look with approval on the recrudescence of the Elijah-spirit displayed by the last proceeding. But many centuries were to elapse, even under the Gospel Dispensation, before men learnt the sacred principle of the early Christians that "violence is hateful to God." Josiah must be judged by a more lenient judgment, and he was obeying a mandate found in the new Book of the Law. But the question arises whether the fierce commands of Deuteronomy were ever intended to be taken _au pied de la lettre_. May not Deut. xiii. 6-18 have been intended to express in a concrete but ideal form the spirit of execration to be entertained towards idolatry? Perhaps in thinking so we are only guilty of an anachronism, and are applying to the seventh century before Christ the feelings of the nineteenth century after Christ.