Weeping for Tammuz.
If the usual interpretation of this passage is correct, then it is clear that there had been introduced from Northern Syria into Jerusalem a superstitious practice and cultus, which was altogether alien from the beliefs and the worship proper to the nation whom the Supreme had favoured with a clear and glorious revelation of his blessed character and his holy will. It is an illustration of the weakness and proneness to err characteristic of our humanity, that a nation so favoured as Judah should borrow from their neighbours religious rites and observances utterly inconsistent with their own religion, and of a kind fitted to degrade rather than to exalt the moral life. We may observe of this special superstition—
I. THAT IT SUBSTITUTED FICTION FOR TRUTH.
II. THAT IT CONCENTRATED ATTENTION UPON NATURE INSTEAD OF UPON THE AUTHOR OF NATURE.
III. THAT IT SUBSTITUTED AN IMAGINATIVE AND FANCIFUL FOR A REAL AND LEGITIMATE CAUSE OF EMOTION.
IV. THAT IT PROMOTED VICE INSTEAD OF MORAL PURITY.
V. THAT IT CONSEQUENTLY DEGRADED THE NATION THAT SUFFERED ITSELF TO BE SEDUCED BY IT.
APPLICATION. No nation and no individual is superior to the necessity of watchfulness against the contaminating influence of neighbours upon a lower moral platform, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." instead of the good leavening the evil, and so purifying the mass, the contrary may happen, and the defiling influence of error and impurity may spread. In this case there is every likelihood of the fulfilment of the proverb, "The companion of fools shall be destroyed."—T.