of Israel, at their coming out of Egypt. Now when the priests were come out of the Sanctuary, and when the Levites and the singing men, clothed with fine linen, sang, 'Give glory to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever,' the house of God was filled with a cloud. Nor could the priests stand and minister by reason of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.

Then Solomon said, 'The Lord promised that He would dwell in a cloud. But I have built a house to His name, that He might dwell there for ever.' And the king turned his face, and blessed all the multitude of Israel (for all the multitude stood attentive).

Then the king went and stood before the altar of the Lord, in presence of all the multitude of Israel, and stretched forth his hands; and kneeling down in the presence of all the multitude of Israel, and lifting up his hands towards heaven, he said:

SOLOMON'S PRAYER OF DEDICATION.

O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like Thee in heaven nor in earth; who keepest covenant and mercy with Thy servants, that walk before Thee with all their hearts;

Who hast performed to Thy servant David, my father, all that Thou hast promised him; and hast accomplished in fact what Thou hast spoken with Thy mouth, as also the present time proveth. Now, then, O Lord God of Israel, fulfil to Thy servant David, my father, whatsoever Thou hast promised him, saying, 'There shall not fail thee a man in My sight, to sit upon the throne of Israel; yet so that thy children take heed to their ways, and walk in My law, as thou hast walked before Me.'

And now, Lord God of Israel, let Thy word be established, which Thou hast spoken to Thy servant David.

If Thy people Israel be overcome by their enemies (for they will sin against Thee), and being converted shall do penance, and call upon Thy Name, and pray to Thee in this place,

Then hear Thou from heaven and forgive the sin of Thy people Israel, and bring them back into the land which Thou gavest to them and their fathers.

Then if any of Thy people Israel, knowing his own scourge and infirmity, shall pray, and shall spread forth his hands in this house,

Hear Thou from heaven, from Thy high dwelling-place, and forgive, and render to every one according to his ways, which Thou knowest him to have in his heart (for Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men);

That they may fear Thee and walk in Thy ways all the days that they live upon the face of the land which Thou hast given to our fathers.

If the stranger also, who is not of Thy people Israel, come from a far country, for the sake of Thy great Name, and Thy strong hand, and Thy stretched-out arm, and adore in this place,

Hear Thou from heaven, Thy firm dwelling-place, and do all that which that stranger shall call upon Thee for; that all the people of the earth may know Thy Name, and may fear Thee, as Thy people Israel, and may know that Thy Name is invoked upon this house.

For Thou art my God: let Thy eyes, I beseech Thee, be open, and let Thy ears be attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.

Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into Thy resting-place, Thou and the ark of Thy strength: let Thy priests, O Lord God, put on salvation, and Thy saints rejoice in good things.

O Lord God, turn not away the face of Thy anointed; remember the mercies of David Thy servant.

Solomon, after the dedication of the Temple, proceeded to regulate the whole constitution of the Priesthood, the subordination of its members to the High-priest, their times of attendance, rights, privileges, and property, &c. ac

cording to the law of Moses. Thus the setting up the ecclesiastical constitution upon a firm basis, according to the law of Moses, became a higher glory of Solomon's peaceful reign than even the building of the material Temple. And in this respect the reign of Solomon is a figure of the reign of Jesus Christ.

§ 59. The glory of Solomon's reign. The disobedience which led to his fall, and the division of the kingdom. His repentance and end

The queen of Saba, having heard of the fame of Solomon in the wisdom of the Lord, came to try him with hard questions. And entering into Jerusalem with a great train and riches, and camels that carried spices, and an immense quantity of gold and precious stones, she came to king Solomon, and spoke to him all that she had in her heart. And Solomon informed her of all the things she proposed to him; there was not any word the king was ignorant of, and which he could not answer her. And when the queen of Saba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had built, the order of his ministers, and the holocausts which he offered in the house of the Lord, she had no longer any spirit in her; and she said to the king, 'The report is true which I heard in my own country concerning thy words and concerning thy wisdom; and I did not believe them that told me, till I came myself and saw with my own eyes, and have found that the half hath not been told me: thy wisdom and thy works exceed the fame which I heard. Blessed are thy men, and blessed are thy servants, who stand before thee always, and hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, whom thou hast pleased, and who hath set thee upon the throne of Israel, because the Lord hath loved Israel for ever, and hath appointed thee king, to do judgment and justice.'

But what could splendour and prosperity, the fruit of his wisdom, avail the king who did not continue obedient to the law of Moses? This law required (Deut. xvii. 16) that the future king should not multiply horses to himself, nor lead back the people into Egypt, being lifted up with the number of his horsemen; that he should not have many wives, who might allure his mind, nor immense sums of silver and gold; but that, after he was raised to the throne of his kingdom, he should copy out to himself the law of Moses in a volume, taking the copy from the priests of the Levitical race. Solomon's love for splendour led him to set at naught all these different safeguards, one after the other. He had forty thousand horses in his stables, and twelve thousand chariots and horsemen ; and the horses were brought to him out of Egypt.' The weight of the gold that was brought to Solomon was six hundred and sixty-six talents. Solomon, moreover, had seven hundred wives as queens; and when he was old, his heart was turned away by women to follow after strange gods. Thus led on step by step in disobedience, he whose wisdom it was a blessing for others to hear became a fool in his own person, and lost the way of wisdom for himself. He grew to be what would now be called a man of liberal views,' attached to no particular religion; and

he fell so low, that he built a temple to Chamos, the abominable idol of Moab, on the Mount of Olives, over against the Temple of the Lord, and went with his wives to burn incense indifferently to Chamos, Moloch, or Astarthe, as it happened.

The Lord God of his father David was angry with him because his mind was turned away; and the Lord said to him, 'Because thou hast done this, and hast not kept My covenant and My precepts, which I have commanded thee, I will divide and rend thy kingdom, and will give it to thy servant. Nevertheless, in thy days I will not do it, for David thy father's sake; but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Neither will I take away the whole kingdom; but I will give one tribe to thy son, for the sake of David My servant and Jerusalem, which I have chosen.'

The instrument chosen to bring about this judgment of God was Jeroboam the son of Nabat. He was an active talented young man, whom Solomon had singled out to set him over his tributes in the district of Mello. Ahias, the Silonite, a prophet of the Lord, met Jeroboam as he was going out of Jerusalem. Taking his own new outer garment or cloak, he divided it into twelve pieces, and as they were alone in the field together, he said to Jeroboam, 'Take to thee ten pieces; for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, “Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give thee ten tribes. But one tribe shall remain to him, for the sake of My servant David and Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel."'

Solomon, hearing of what had come to pass, sought to kill Jeroboam; but he arose, and fled into Egypt, to Sesac the king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon.

It is not a matter of positive certainty that Solomon died repentant; but the Book of Ecclesiastes is commonly thought to contain the expression of his repentance. The following passage seems to come from a mind contemplating an approaching death with a deep sense of sorrow for the past:

SOLOMON SEES DEATH APPROACHING.

Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the time of affliction come, and the years draw nigh of which thou shalt say, 'They please me not;'

Before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;

Before the silver cord be broken, and the golden fillet shrink back, and the

pitcher be crushed at the fountain, and the wheel be broken upon the cistern,

And the dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it.

Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes; all things are vanity.

Let us all hear the end of the matter. Fear God, and keep His commandments. For this is the whole of man.

If all the vast amount of acquired knowledge which Solomon possessed did not preserve him from breaking the law of Moses, as it affected himself, it is not very easy to see why small smatterings of knowledge will make people much better observers of the public laws of their own state. Only those who begin in early youth to learn their duty to the laws of God will be good observers, for conscience' sake, of the laws of man.

§ 60. The schism of Israel into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Juda, which retained the Temple and its sacrifices; and the kingdom of Israel, which set up the worship of the golden calves in Dan and Bethel.

Roboam, Solomon's son, now reigned in his stead; and Jeroboam, hearing of Solomon's death, came back from Egypt, and assembled the chief men of Israel. They sent a deputation to Roboam, in Sichem, saying, 'Thy father laid a grievous yoke upon us; now, therefore, do thou take off a little of the grievous service of thy father, and of his mostheavy yoke which he put upon us, and we will serve thee.' And he said to them, 'Come to me again after three days.' And when the people were gone, he took counsel with the ancients, who had stood before his father Solomon while he yet lived, saying, 'What counsel give you to me, that I may answer the people? And they said to him, 'If thou please this people, and soothe them with kind words, they will be thy servants for ever.' But he forsook the counsel of the ancients, and began to consult with the young men that had been brought up with him, and were in his train. So when Jeroboam and all the people came to Roboam the third day, the king answered roughly, and leaving the counsel of the ancients, he spoke according to the advice of the young men: 'My father laid upon you a heavy yoke, which I will make heavier; my father beat you with scourges, but I will beat you with scorpions.' And all the people, upon the king's speaking thus roughly, said unto him, 'We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Isai. Return to thy dwellings, O Israel, and do thou, O David, feed thy own house.' And Israel went away to their dwellings. And king Roboam sent Aduram, who was over the tributes, to them; and the children of Israel stoned him so that he died. King Roboam therefore made haste to get up into his chariot, and fled into Jerusalem. And Israel revolted from the house of David unto this day.

Second Subdivision.-The Kingdom of Israel to its Extinction.

§ 61. Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, makes Israel to sin. Jeroboam, after this, was chosen king by the tribes of Israel, and he established himself in Sichem; upon which Roboam assembled an army to march against Israel, intending to subdue the leaders of the revolt, and to recover his authority; but Semeias, a prophet of God, came and forbade the war, and Roboam returned to Jerusalem. It was now Jeroboam's turn to be tried. Ahias the prophet had predicted to him that God would make him the king of Israel, and this had come to pass. Another prophet of God had appeared to protect him on the throne, by sending Roboam and his army home; what more therefore could he want, being not only brought to the throne, but also protected upon it by the power of God? Jeroboam, however, was a shrewd worldly-wise man, for which qualities Solomon had singled him out and had advanced

him in office; and shrewd worldly-wise men, generally speaking, care little about God or His protection. The worldly-wise Jeroboam began to consider, 'Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up to offer their sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; and the heart of this people will turn to their lord Roboam, the king of Juda, and they will kill me and return to him.' Jeroboam therefore came to the conclusion, that the new kingdom of Israel must have an established church of its own, and that at all risks the people must be stopped from going to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices. The law of Moses, it is true, strictly forbade the people offering their sacrifices in any place except in the place which God Himself had chosen, which was Jerusalem; but,' thought Jeroboam, 'what is to become of me and my throne, if they do go?'

Laying his plans, therefore, to this effect, he made two golden calves, and said to the people, 'Go ye up no more to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt.' And he set the one in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became an occasion of sin; for the people went to adore the calf as far as Dan. And he made temples in the high places, and priests of the lowest of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. To prevent the people being shocked by too great a change, he also appointed feasts, corresponding to those observed in the Temple at Jerusalem; and to encourage them by royal example, he attended in person at the altar in Bethel, and worshipped the golden calf which he had set up, with all his court and the officers of his household.

As is nearly always the case with all evil policy, that it may be the greater snare to the sinner, Jeroboam's plan appeared at first to be crowned with success. The people, with a few exceptions, forsook the Temple in Jerusalem, and came to offer their sacrifices at the altars which the king had set up. As Jeroboam, however, was standing burning incense before the altar in Bethel, there came a prophet of the Lord into the presence of the king, who cried out against the altar, and said, 'O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord: "Behold, a child shall be born to the house of David, Josias by name; and he shall slay upon thee the priests of the high places, who now burn incense upon thee, and he shall burn men's bones upon thee." And he gave a sign the same day, saying, 'This shall be the sign that the Lord hath spoken: "Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out." And when the king had heard the word of the man of God, which he had cried out against the altar in Bethel, he stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying, 'Lay hold on him.' And the hand which he stretched forth against him withered, and he was not able to draw it back again to him. The altar was also rent, and the ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given before.

Jeroboam was terrified, and entreated the prophet to pray for him, that his hand might be restored; but when this had been done, the king