Stories of the Prophets (Before the Exile) | Page 7

the war, the burden of finding a living for the two was soon thrust upon him. There was only one thing that he knew by which he could earn money--"dressing sycamore trees."
He went at his work with a vim. As he grew up, and his and his mother's needs increased, his wits became sharpened. Why could he not dry and grind the sycamore fruit himself? This he did and increased his income. Then, his mother suggested that she would bake the flour into bread, if he would sell it. Amos agreed to that, and the little family thrived.
One day Amos brought the idea to his mother that their sycamore bread could be sold at a better price in Jerusalem. He asked for permission to go there and his mother, desiring more that her son should see the capital than that he should get higher prices for the bread, said:
"Go, my son, and God be with thee."
That trip to Jerusalem and the several trips that followed, made a great impression upon the young man and gave a remarkable turn to his whole life.
He saw Jerusalem, of whose beauty and glory his father had often told him, a fallen city. It had not yet recovered from the terrible results of the war with Amaziah of Israel; King Uzziah had not yet restored the treasures and vessels of which the temples had been looted; and, in the quarter of the city where Amos sold his bread, oh! such poverty, such wretchedness, such desolation!
His heart was filled with grief. He went to the trenches where he knew his father lay in an unmarked grave, and wept bitterly. There, at his father's grave, a wonderful thought came to him. A new light entered into his life and a great determination for his future career. His mind once made up, he soon outlined a plan for himself, and having the determination to carry the plan through, he made rapid progress.
With the additional profits that resulted from his business trips to Jerusalem, Amos bought sheep and goats and became a shepherd, as well as a gatherer of sycamore fruit.
The great rocky wilderness that slopes from the limestone hills of Tekoah down to the Dead Sea was just the place where sheep and goats could prosper.
So, in addition to the thriving business of his old trade, he dealt, also, in goat milk and wool and in the animals themselves.
Often, as he sat on the hillsides, in the cool of the sycamores, and watched his flocks, his mind would turn to the things he saw and heard in Jerusalem. He had heard there that Bethel, one of the sanctuaries of Israel, was always filled with pilgrims at festival time--and he determined upon a trip to Bethel, twenty-two miles north of Tekoah.
He returned greatly disheartened.
"Wealth and feasting saw I there," Amos told his mother, "and wine and song, and altars reeking with blood of fatted lambs and oxen; but God was not in the heart of the people of Israel."
His mother chided him gently. To say such things was blasphemy; for sacrifices were demanded of all the people by the religious laws of the state; and it was also commanded that a portion of the sacrifice should be consumed by him who brought it--therefore the feasting. As to the song and wine, did not the Sweet Singer say, "Serve the Lord with gladness?"
Amos did not reply. He knew that his good-hearted mother had given expression to the idea of God's worship as all the people, both of Israel and of Judah, at that time, understood it. They brought the sacrifices, as prescribed by the priests at the sanctuaries; a portion of the slaughtered animal was given to God on the altar, and the portion that was eaten by the sacrificer was looked upon as a meal--a banquet--participated in by him and God, together; such a meal soon became a feast, with wine and song. Unfortunately, these banquets often degenerated into drunkenness and revelry.
Amos felt that such worship of God was not right, but he had not yet discovered what was wrong.
When the period of prosperity opened up for Israel, with Jeroboam II's conquest of Damascus, Judah also felt the good times. Amos, now an experienced master herdsman, took the advantage afforded by the peace and improved business conditions. He traveled with his stock-in-trade to far northern markets, to Samaria, to Damascus, to Hamath, and, from there his caravans wended their way east, even as far as the City Asshur, the capital of Assyria.
He was not a mere trader, however. He was a close observer and a student of men and things wherever he led his caravans. He talked with strangers about other lands which he had not visited and became, therefore, well acquainted with political, religious and social conditions everywhere.
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