Solomon as his successor on the throne, from the repeated records we have of exhortations addressed to him as to his future career. He bids him "keep the charge of the Lord his God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies;" he gives him charge concerning the building of the temple, bidding him" be strong and do it ;" and exhorts him before the princes of the people in those solemn familiar words (words addressed since that time by many an anxious father to the son of his affections and hopes): "And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever."

Are not these words retrospective as well as prospective? They point to exhortations and instructions gone before. They also imply a fear lest the future career of Solomon should not justify the hopes sustained respecting him-a fear lest there should not be found in him the "perfect heart and the willing mind;" lest he should forsake the God of his fathers, and be cast off by him. The warning, to us at least, reads like an unconscious prophecy. There was a time coming, happily hidden from the aged king, when all that he feared, all that he warned his son against, would come to pass. Had there been already in the career of Solomon as a youth indications of that love of luxurious pleasure which afterwards led him away from God, and which, unhappily, David's own history might lead him to think lightly of?

He was called to the throne at an early age, and under circumstances which might easily present strong temptations to one so young, and who, however carefully educated, had not yet had his character formed and tested by the discipline of life. "The position to which he succeeded was unique. Never before and never after did the kingdom of Israel take its place among the great monarchies of the East, able to ally itself, or to contend on equal terms with Egypt or Assyria, stretching from the river (Euphrates) to the border of Egypt, from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Akaba, receiving annual tributes from many subject princes. Large treasures, accumulated through many years, were at his disposal. Knowledge, art, music, poetry, had received

a new impulse, and were moving on with rapid steps to such perfection as the age and race were capable of attaining." The prayers of David on his behalf, as recorded in the seventy-second Psalm, show with what glowing anticipations and under what favourable auspices his reign began. He was to be the prince of peace, the protector of the righteous, the helper of the poor, the deliverer of the needy. Throughout his wide extended dominions he was to be as rain upon the mown grass, refreshing, grateful, fertilizing. All nations should be blessed in him. Willing tribute should be paid to him from the stores of Tarshish and the isles. The kings of Sheba and Seba should offer gifts. Prayer should be offered continually on his behalf, and daily should he be praised. No dissonant sounds of war should break the long repose of his reign. Before his acknowledged power the wild and lawless tribes of the wilderness should bow; and the enemies who might envy his greatness, or meditate vain things against him, should lick the dust of his feet in abject submission.

"We may rightly ask," adds the able writer from whom we have already quoted, "what manner of man he was, outwardly and inwardly, who, at the age of nineteen or twenty, was called to this glorious sovereignty. We have, it is true, no direct description in this case, as we have of the earlier kings. There are, however, materials for filling up the gap. The wonderful impression which Solomon made upon all who came near him may well lead us to believe that with him, as with Saul and David, Absalom and Adonijah, as with most other favourite princes of eastern peoples, there must have been the fascination and the grace of a noble presence. Whatever higher mystic meaning may be latent in Psa. xlv. or the Song of Songs, we are all but compelled to think of them as having had at least an historical starting-point. They tell us of one who was in the eyes of the men of his own time fairer than the children of men ;' the face bright and ruddy' as his father's, bushy locks dark as the raven's wing, yet not without a golden glow; the eyes soft as the eyes of doves;' the countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.' Add to this all gifts of a noble, far-reaching intellect, large and ready sympathies, a playful and genial humour, the lips 'full of grace,' the soul anointed' as 'with the oil of gladness,' and we may form

* Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible."

some notion of what the king was like in that dawn of his golden prime."

Such was the young man, and such his position and prospects, when he was called to sit upon the throne of his father David. What will he make of the position? Will he fulfil the hopes of the nation? Will he in the moral greatness of his character, in the goodness as well as the greatness of his reign, be a worthy type of David's greater Son, in whom alone the psalmist's glowing anticipations on behalf of Solomon can be perfectly fulfilled?

His reign opens well. As with Saul, so with him, his new responsibilities appear to have awakened in his mind a feeling answering to their greatness and importance, and for a time it could be said of him that "he loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father." The tabernacle which had accompanied the children of Israel through the desert was now pitched at Gibeon, and thither the young king resorted to offer sacrifices to the Lord. It was meet that his reign should have this solemn inauguration; that he who was appointed to build the house of the Lord should, at the outset of his career, recognise the God of his fathers as the God of Israel. But yet more was needful. It was not enough that he should make this open acknowledgment, but that he should from his heart choose whom he would serve. God therefore appeared to him in a dream by night, and said, “Ask what I shall give thee." There was nothing to hinder him from asking for wealth or power, but his reply shows a higher tone of feeling. He felt that this kingly office to which he was called was no opportunity for indulging in pleasure or for grasping at power. It was God's calling. There was a Divine idea to be attained, a Divine purpose to be fulfilled in it. He felt that all external power and greatness were as nothing compared with this, that he should be a wise and righteous ruler, ruling not for himself, but for God and the people. And he felt that in order to this he must have more than human wisdom.

The dream (without at all detracting from its supernatural character) may be regarded as the reflex of his own thoughts. He wanted wisdom: he had been feeling the need of it as the greatness of his work pressed upon him. His dream indicated the real state of his heart, as dreams often do. "However," says Sir Thomas Browne, "dreams may be fallacious concerning outward events, yet they may be truly significant at home, and whereby we may more

sensibly understand ourselves." This dream, therefore, may be regarded as a witness to Solomon's sincerity in this request, and to the deep sense which he had at this time of the responsibility resting upon him. He felt himself but as a child in the presence of these great questions of state which began to press upon him, and wisdom seemed to be the principal thing-wisdom "to go in and out before this great people." God shaped his thoughts into this dream, and the desire of the young king for wisdom shaped itself into this response to the question so solemnly put. The dream indicated the state of his heart, and his answer pleased the Lord. There came to him the promise of a wise and understanding heart. He recognised that this was the time when he was "master of his fate." The price was in his hand to get wisdom, and he did not let the time go by. He asked for the noblest gift, made that his choice, and all other things were added to him.

But this early promise was not fulfilled. He was wise, rich, and honoured, but his wisdom and magnificence wanted the crown of virtue. Under him the kingdom of Israel attained its greatest splendour, but with him also began its fatal decline. Gold and silver, ivory and cedar, gorgeous palaces, luxurious gardens, splendid retinues, costly treasures from distant lands, Sheba and Seba offering gifts, -all told of the boundless wealth and magnificence of the king, and of his enterprise and skill too. His writings remain to us as the witness to his wisdom in higher things as well. But here our admiration must end. "Solomon had many advantages, and no man ever made a worse use of them," says a shrewd commentator. And the witness is true. The wise young king, whose early career seemed and was so full of promise, sank into an exhausted voluptuarya prematurely old, worn-out man,-who, having drunk the cup of pleasure to its dregs, threw it from him with disgust; and who, in the midst of all that could gratify, all that could promote his enjoyment if he had known how to use it aright, ungratefully cried, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' What more mournful testimony can there be than his own?" Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Well might he add in the words of the book which sets forth, it may be hoped, the penitence of his last days, "Better is a poor and

wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished."

He had not been without admonition. After the solemn dedication of the temple there was given to him another turning point. "The Lord appeared to him the second time, as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon." Already perhaps there were intimations of danger. His alliance with Egypt, and his marriage with Pharaoh's daughter, had opened the way for other alliances of a yet more unwise character. God graciously forewarned him, and gave him now-when the solemn dedication of the temple might suggest a return to earlier and purer thoughts-the opportunity of a higher, nobler career. He tells him that he has heard and accepted his prayer on behalf of the temple, and then with words of solemn warning foreshadows his danger and the doom which his sin would bring upon the nation. But this time Solomon makes no response. Soon he fell. Women

of the Moabites and Ammonites and Zidonians and others were sought for the harem of the once wise and virtuous king. This sin led to another. Idolatry was not only tolerated in the land which seemed but just now to be solemnly re-dedicated to Jehovah, but Solomon himself joined in the impure and cruel worship. The king who began with such glorious promise became the first of those who made Israel to sin. To Solomon it is owing that the nation was from this time cursed with idolatry, and hastened to its doom.

The Divine warning was now changed into threatening. The Lord was angry with Solomon, and said, "Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant." The judgment was delayed, not for Solomon's, but for David's sake. But other disasters came; the kingdom was torn with internal dissensions; and the king, prematurely old, died just soon enough to avoid the threatened revolution.

It is not for us, where Scripture is silent, to decide the question of his subsequent repentance. He knew the way of life, and we know that the God who appeared to him in Gibeon is a forgiving God. There, within that veil of hope, his judgment must rest. But the evil that he wrought lived after him. He entailed upon the kingdom which he might have raised to the highest pitch of national virtue