Shields of Gold and Shields of Copper.
WHEN Shishak, king of Egypt, returned from the conquest of Jerusalem, in the reign of King Rehoboam, he carried away with him, among other treasures, the shields of gold which Solomon had made. We do not read that before this disaster Rehoboam had set any special value upon these golden shields, or that he had taken any special care of them; but no sooner had they been carried away to adorn the temples or the palaces of Egypt, than he seems keenly to have felt their loss. And so he made for himself shields of copper in their stead, and gave them into the charge of a trusty guard. "And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard-chamber." The picture is true to human nature. Too often when the treasure of pure gold is put into our hands, we lightly esteem it, slight it, and suffer it to be snatched away from us by the enemy. Not till it is gone, do we realize its value. Then we lament, too late, the carelessness which permitted the treasure to be torn from our grasp, and we make a poor attempt to supply its place and to atone for our former negligence by making for ourselves a treasure of copper, and guarding it with that jealous care with which we should have guarded the treasures of gold. But the shields of copper can never fully take the place of the shields of gold; and there is a sense of loss and of unreality in the very earnestness with which we guard the tarnished copper where tarnished gold should have shone. Even if others do not know, we know ourselves, that it is base metal which shines upon our temple walls, and our passionate zeal for what remains to us is less a zealous love for the guarded shields of copper than an undying regret for the vanished gold. There must have been something pathetic in the sight of these copper shields borne into the temple when the king went up to worship, and then carried back into the guard-chamber to be kept safely under lock and key. And we are conscious of the same pathos in the way in which men guard the copper of life after they have lost its gold. The gold is gone, but they will act as if the copper which they have, were gold. They have lost the simple faith of their childhood; but if they cannot believe as a child believes, they will believe as a man believes who would become again as a little child. Years ago, it might have been possible for them to love all men; it is, perhaps, not possible now; and yet they will act as if they did love all men. The child-like sense of the constant presence of God has passed away; yet they resolve to act as if they always felt God near, and they will cherish with a passionate devotedness whatever reminds them of his presence. What is lost, is lost; they will offer to the Lord God of what they have and will guard it with the more earnest care because it is so little. And yet it is better not to lose the shields of gold.—S. S. Times.