THE BOOK OF AMOS.
This prophet was divinely inspired, and forced away from his rustic duties at once to prophesy in Bethel, and attack the Lord's enemies in the grand fort. Full of the divine impetus, he joins the catholic cry of all the prophets, against the surrounding nations, and against Samaria, the death of whose king, Zachariah, he announced, and the Assyrian invasion by Pul. From the rustic habits of his early years we might expect a plain and humble style. The contrary however is the case; he yields to none in the force of argument, and the luxury of figurative language. His powers as a rhetor are great, and his bold and impressive metaphors shed a kind of glory and rekindling brilliancy over his whole book.