“Now,” said Asa, in effect, “what is good for the public is good for the individual; what is good for the subject is good for the queen.”
Athaliah was a king’s daughter and a king’s wife. She had a son whose name was Ahaziah, but, as he was an invalid, he did not occupy the throne longer than about twelve months.
As soon as his mother saw that he was dead a fierce and most murderous passion seized her heart. She then resolved to be queen herself.
In order to carry out this nefarious purpose, she slew all the seed royal, so that, there being no successor to the throne, she ascended it and reigned as queen.
It is very wonderful that some of the most cruel and startling things in the world have been done by women. One called Laodice poisoned her six sons one by one, that she might be empress of Constantinople. Another, ironically named Irene, took the eyes out of her own boy, that he might be incapable of empire, and that she might reign alone.
These things were done in the ancient time. Is any of the cruelty of heart left still? The accident may be changed--what about the passion and purpose of the heart? Let every one answer the question individually.
Athaliah made her heap of corpses and laughed in her mad heart, saying that now she was queen. But always some Fleance escapes the murderer’s clutch. In that heap of corpses there was an infant boy, hardly twelve months old; he was spared. The sword had not taken his little life, but the queen knew not that the child Joash had escaped. He was taken and with his nurse was hidden in the Temple, and there he was trained by the good priest, Jehoiada, for some six years. All the while the queen was reigning and doing evil.
The little boy was saved by his aunt, Jehosheba, and when six years had passed and the boy was seven years of age, being twelve months old when he was snatched from impending ruin, Jehoiada called the rulers together and all the chief and mighty men of Israel. He then revealed the secret to them.
Having disposed these dignitaries in military order and with military precision around the person of the young king, Jehoiada brought the crown and put it upon his head, and he gave him the testimony or Book of Leviticus; and, having gone through all this ceremonial process, the young king stood upright by the pillar of inauguration in the Temple, and all that great throng then clapped their hands and shouted: “God save the king!” Louder the shout rang till the queen heard it in her own house, which was not far off.