SOLOMON was very rich. Everything was on the most magnificent scale. This made his reign very splendid, but in this luxury lurked danger. It is sad when in a community there is business prosperity while character is deteriorating. A poet says:

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

The luxury of Solomon’s court, with the vast outlay of money, necessarily incurred heavy taxation, which soon became burdensome, and led ultimately to serious disaffection. An old legend says that in the heart of the staff on which Solomon leaned there was a worm which secretly was eating away the strength of the staff. The legend has its meaning in the fact that in Solomon’s prosperity there lurked the insidious evil which, by and by, wrought ruin to the king’s own character and disruption to his kingdom.

EVENING: CLIMBING UPWARDS

SOMEONE asked an old minister, “What is repentance?” “The first turn to the right,” was his answer. If you want to grow into Christ-likeness, rising at length into radiant purity and sainthood, you must begin with the first simple duty that comes to your hand. Resist the first temptation. Do the first right thing that offers. Paint on your soul the first vision of divine loveliness you see. You cannot reach sainthood at a bound; you must conquer your way up step by step.

“Heaven is not reached by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise,
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round”

Click to Subscribe