204 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

_ and instruction. The whole tendency and character of his life
may be gathered from that wonderful book, the book of
Lamentations.

Of course, it must be admitted that this is hardly the
kind of book boys will care much about reading while they are
boys; but in maturer years, when the Bible comes to be more
of a study, they will see what a grand legacy this boy of Ana-
thoth left to enrich the sacred literature of all coming time..
There is no sublimer elegy in all the world than the Lam-
entations of Jeremiah. There is a tear in every word, a
sigh in every line; and the whole book sounds like a mournful
requiem, wrung from a broken heart, over the hapless down-
fall of the Kingdom of God.

Of the boyhood of Ezekiel very little is known. He
was the son of Buzi, who like Jeremiah’s father, was also a
priest. What knowledge these two boys had of one another,
or if they knew each other at all, we do not know. Ezekiel
was carried away captive at the destruction of Jerusalem.
A community of these Jews had settled in Babylon, by the
banks of the river Chebar, and it was here, in this land of *
exile, far from home, that the word of God comes to Ezekiel.
We are not much at a loss to know how these communications.
canie. Ezekiel simply says:

‘The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.”

And in farther reference to the matter, the Bible in
a brief biographical notice, says:

“Tn the fifth year of the month, which was the fifth
year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, the word of the Lord.
came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the:
land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar; and the hand.
of the Lord was there upon him.”

It is evident that Ezekiel had been called to discharge