Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 45. (11/27/1884)

Signs of the Times

Nov 27, 1884

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1884

Noah's Time and Ours.

By Ellen G. White

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

IN the days of Noah "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." This is an accurate description of the generation that perished in the waters of the flood; for it was written by inspiration.

"God saw that the wickedness of man was great," and that the "earth was filled with violence." Lawlessness was rife. God had given men his commandments as a rule of life; but the fear of God had well-nigh died out of their hearts. His law was transgressed, and almost every conceivable sin was the result. The wickedness of men was open and daring, and the cries of the oppressed reached to Heaven. Justice was trampled in the dust. The strong not only disregarded the rights of the weak, but forced them to commit deeds of violence and crime.

The same characteristics prevail in our day. Crimes as grievous, as black and terrible, are perpetrated. How many men in high positions, who have been honored as men of talent and integrity, have proved themselves unworthy to be trusted. How many such persons have been detected in fraud, bribery, theft, and even murder. Take up the secular papers, and read the accounts of murder. Many of these crimes are so cold-blooded and causeless that it seems as though men kill one another merely from impulse or for amusement. And these atrocities have become of such common occurrence that they hardly elicit a comment or awaken surprise. They are looked upon as a matter of course, as evils that must be endured.

Before the flood the wickedness of man was great; but this was not all. "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." The purposes and desires of the heart were corrupt from day to day.

Men sometimes flatter themselves that in this enlightened age they are superior in knowledge and talents to those who lived before the flood; but those who think this do not rightly estimate the physical and mental strength of that long-lived race. Growth was slow and firm. Men did not, as at the present time, flash into maturity early, use up their vital forces, and only live out half their days. Their minds were of a high order, and were strong and clear. Had these men, with their rare powers to conceive and execute, devoted themselves to the service of God, they would have made their Creator's name a praise in the earth, and would have answered the purpose for which he gave them being. But they failed to do this. Man corrupted his way on the earth. There were many giants, men of great stature and strength, renowned for wisdom, skillful in devising the most cunning and wonderful work; but in proportion to their skill and mental ability was their great guilt because of unbridled iniquity. They were apostates from God, and were cruel and oppressive to those who were not able to resist them.

God bestowed upon these antediluvians many and rich gifts; but they used his bounties to glorify themselves, and turned them into a curse by fixing their thoughts and affections upon the gifts instead of the Giver. They had goodly trees of great variety and almost without limit; but of these they made temples, where they reveled in scenes of pleasure and wickedness. Gold, silver, and precious stones were in abundance, but they used these also to gratify the desires of their own proud hearts.

These sinful men could not deny the existence of God; but they would have been glad to know that there was no God to witness their deeds, and call them to an account. They delighted to put him out of their minds and hearts. The children were not taught to fear and reverence their Maker. They grew up unrestrained in their desires; and were without principle or conscience. Their minds were absorbed in devising means to rival one another in pleasure and vice. This world was all the Heaven these people wanted. They were slaves to appetite and passion, and the indulgence of every wish was their ambition. They were hasty and violent, and would bear no contradiction. Everything that interfered with their desires was bitterly hated, and quickly moved out of the way.

Yet the whole world was not corrupt. There were faithful witnesses for God. Methuselah, Enoch, Noah, and many others labored to keep alive on the earth the knowledge of the true God, and to stay the tide of moral evil. God declared that his Spirit should not always strive with guilty men, but that their probation should be a hundred and twenty years; if they did not then cease to pollute with their sins the world and its rich treasures, he would blot them from his creation; and these faithful ministers of righteousness gave the warning message to the world. But the light was not heeded; and the preaching of Noah and his co-laborers impressed hearts less and less. Many, even of the worshipers of God, were beguiled into sin by the bewitching allurements which were constantly before them, and lost their peculiar, holy character. They had not sufficient moral power to stand against the corrupting influences of the age.

By their obstinate resistance to the reproofs of conscience and the warnings of God's prophets, that generation filled up the measure of their iniquity, and became ripe for destruction. The patience of God was exhausted, and he determined to manifest his justice in the utter extinction of the sinful race, who had given themselves up to the almost unrestrained control of Satan. Because mankind had perverted his gifts, he would deface and destroy the things with which he had delighted to bless them; he would sweep away the beasts of the field, and the rich vegetation which furnished such an abundant supply of food, and transform the fair earth into one vast scene of desolation and ruin.

Is not this picture of the antediluvian world reproduced in our time? Man has not grown more pure and holy since the days of Noah. His heart has not changed; it is still "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." The intense worldliness of that generation is exceeded by that of the generation now living. Money is lavishly spent for costly houses, fine horses and carriages, and other expensive articles for luxury and display, while the poor suffer for food and clothing. God intrusts means to his stewards that they may prevent heart-sickening poverty with its attendant ignorance and wretchedness; but they do not realize their duty to their fellow-men. The fear of God is banished from their hearts, and his law is treated with indifference and neglect.

Said Christ, "As in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." God did not condemn the antediluvians for eating and drinking; he had given them the fruits of the earth in great abundance to supply their physical wants. Their sin consisted in taking these gifts without gratitude to the Giver, and debasing themselves by indulging appetite without restraint.

It was lawful for them to marry. Marriage was in God's order; it was one of the first institutions which he established. He gave special directions concerning this ordinance, clothing it with sanctity and beauty; but these directions were forgotten, and marriage was perverted and made to minister to passion. The pious mingled with the depraved, and became like them in spirit and in deeds. "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

A similar state of things exists now in relation to marriage. Marriages are formed between

the godly and the ungodly because inclination governs in the selection of husband or wife. The parties do not ask counsel of God, nor have his glory in view. Christianity ought to have a controlling, sanctifying influence upon the marriage relation; but husband and wife are not united by Christian principle; uncontrolled passion lies at the foundation of many of the marriages that are contracted at the present time.

In Noah's day there were men who laughed to scorn his words of warning. They said that there were fixed laws in nature, which made a flood impossible; that Noah was crazy on this subject, and if there were any truth in what he said, the men of renown, the wise, the prudent, the great men, would understand the matter. There was total disbelief in Noah's testimony in regard to the coming judgments; but this unbelief did not prevent or hinder the coming storm. At the appointed time, "the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened," and the earth was washed of its corruption. Only those who found shelter in the ark were saved.

Reader, another storm is coming. The earth will again be swept by the desolating wrath of God; and again sin and sinners will be destroyed. Do you feel that it is an event of little importance? Read some of the utterances of the prophets in reference to the day of God: "Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come." "The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord. The mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness."

But though this is a day of trouble and distress to the wicked, the righteous will be able to say, "Lo, this is our God;" "we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." The truth will be their shield and buckler. God will be their refuge, and under his wings shall they trust. Says the psalmist: "Because thou hast made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."

GOD'S THOUGHTS TOWARD US.

By Mrs. M. Stratton Beers

BY MRS. M. STRATTON BEERS.

"I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jer. 29 : 11.

BLESSED knowledge, that passeth The understanding of men; To know the thoughts God thinketh (Tho' beyond our human ken), Are fraught with peace toward us, "To give an expected end."

He'll think of all that is needed, Just how to mould and to bend These unfinished earthen vessels, Before to the furnace he'll send. Not one of his thoughts will we question, For he hath an eye to the "end;"

That "end" for which we are longing, With a yearning unsurpassed; For we know 'tis God's thought toward us, When through the furnace we've passed, To bring, "without spot or blemish," Each faithful one home at last.

The Bible and the Monuments.

By William Hayes Ward

(Concluded.)

IN two cases in the Bible story of the kings it has seemed like a plain mistake that Babylon is mentioned instead of Nineveh. How could Hezekiah have sent ambassadors with presents to Meradach-baladan, king at Babylon, while Nineveh was the capital? The monuments solve the riddle. They tell the whole story of the revolt of Meradach-baladan at Babylon against the king at Nineveh. The embassy sent to the rebel was a great political blunder, and Isaiah was right in rebuking it. The other case of difficulty is where the Bible tells us that Manasseh was taken captive by the king of Assyria and carried to Babylon. The annals of Esar-haddon are very imperfect, but they mention Manasseh as a tributary king, and we learn from them that he (Esar-haddon) was the only king of Assyria who held his court at Babylon. The Bible is confirmed on both these points.

Before passing from the monuments of Assyria to those of Babylon, we may recall briefly the now well-known Moabite stone, with its remarkable confirmation of the Bible story. The Bible tells us that after the death of Ahab, and the accession of Jehoram, Mesha, king of Moab, rebelled. There was discovered, ten years ago, in Dibon, the capital of Moab, a stone column on which this very Mesha, otherwise unknown, had given an account, engraved nearly nine hundred years before Christ, of the success of his rebellion. In a long story, which reads like a chapter of the Bible, he tells of his victories, and how he captured the cities of Israel by the help of his god Chemosh.

The scene of the stories of the book of Daniel is laid in Babylon during the time of the later empire, which had its seat there. No book has been so severely assailed by destructive criticism. Those who reject it agree in assigning its date to a very late period,—that of Antiochus Epiphanes, about two centuries before Christ. It was almost impossible, until within a very few years, to make any conclusive reply to these critics, especially as the book of Daniel has reached us with what is probably not a very pure text. It is written in two different languages, of which one, the Chaldee, is perhaps a translation of an original, lost Hebrew. Very likely we owe to this late translator the Greek name, which cannot be denied, of the musical instruments. But what is of vastly more importance than the verbal alterations, or errors of translation, or transcription, the monuments prove to us conclusively that the whole color and atmosphere of the historical chapters of Daniel are genuine Babylonian. Such a book could not have been written three or four hundred years later, when the civilization of Babylon had perished. There was no antiquarian learning of the day which could have drawn a true picture of the Babylonian Empire at a period as far removed from that of Antiochus as we are from that of Luther, and separated from it by the overthrow of the Babylonian by the Persian power, or the overthrow of the Persian in its turn by the alien Greek.

The chief of all the objections to the book of Daniel is that it says that the last king of Babylon was Belshazzar, and that he was killed at the capture of the city. But all Greek historians agree that the last king of Babylon was Nabonidus, and that he was not killed. Indeed, he was not in Babylon at all when it was captured, but with the army in Borsippa, and lived for some time after. Greek historians mention no Belshazzar. The contradiction was absolute, and could not be explained. But the monuments have now been recovered, and give us abundant proof that both are right. They tell us that there was a king Belshazzar as well as a king Nabonidus. He was son of Nabonidus, and was for three years associated with his father on his throne. There is extant a prayer of Nabonidus in which he beseeches the gods to bless his son Belshazzar. We are told on inscriptions very lately discovered, that in previous years Nabonidus had remained at home, and sent his son Belshazzar to command the army in the field, but that in this last year he took the army himself, and left his son in command at Babylon. And this explains another curious fact. There have been found the records, thousands of them, on little clay tablets, kept for over a century in the office of the recorder of deeds in Babylon. Out of one hundred and sixteen years there is not one lacking in which from one to thirty deeds have not been found recorded, all dated. We find one, just one, dated in the third year of King Belshazzar. His first two years are credited to his father, with whom he reigned, while in this third year he was in Babylon alone. And the third year of Belshazzar is the only one mentioned in Daniel. We can now understand why Belshazzar promised to make Daniel the "third ruler in the kingdom." He could not make him the second, as he was only second himself. The difficulty is more than removed.

We are told in Daniel that Babylon was captured on the night of a great feast to the idol gods, at which the wives and concubines joined in a wild revelry. But the women were not in the habit of feasting with men—how is this? An account, by Cyrus himself, of his capture of Babylon, was dug up only three or four years ago. In it he declares that Babylon was captured "without fighting," on the fourteenth day of the month Tammuz. Now the month Tammuz was named in honor of the god Tammuz, the Babylonian Adonis, who married their Venus, or Ishtar; and the fourteenth of Tammuz was the regular time to celebrate their union with lascivious orgies. On this day, of all others, the women took part in the horrible rites; and it was in this feast of king, princes, wives, and concubines that Babylon was taken and Belshazzar slain. The Bible is here fully and wonderfully corroborated. How could a writer three hundred and fifty years later know all this?

These are but specimens selected from many of the abundant and constant corroborations which the monuments give to the historical accounts of the Bible. I do not mean to say that they have yet solved all difficulties, or that they have not raised any difficulties of their own. But the difficulties that remain are chiefly chronological or verbal, like the dates in a king's reign; or the apparent substitution of "Darius" for "Gobryas," and of "Ahasuerus" (Xerxes) for "Artaxerxes" in Daniel. Such errors are liable to occur, and need give us no concern. The essential fact is proved beyond cavil, that the historical parts of the Old Testament are proved, by contemporaneous records just dug up and translated in our generation, to be substantially true. We find no record of miracles, and we should expect none, for they belong to Hebrew history or private life. Nor do we find confirmation, only illustration, of the Bible account of the creation and the deluge. The old Babylonian tales of these beginnings of things, as I have said, antedating history, are of the highest interest to the Bible student, but are quite apart from my present purpose, which is satisfied with the plain annals of kings, without entering the mythology of these old nations whose gross polytheism is the most instructive contrast to the pure monotheism of the Hebrews which, more emphatically even in its cosmogony than in its history, offers to human worship only one God, Creator, and Preserver of all things, one God holy and merciful, such a God as our nineteenth-century culture need not be ashamed to worship as he was worshiped by Enoch, Abraham, and Moses.

The Wise Shall Shine

"They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."

The Prophecies.

By Monroe Gibson

THEY occupy a large portion of the Bible, and therefore are important; but remember that the greater part of the prophecies are not predictions. A great deal of prophecy is just what we call preaching, only it is most powerful preaching. Sometimes it is like a clarion, to rouse men from the sleep of sin and call them to "awake to righteousness." Sometimes it is like a sweet flute or Æolian harp, to comfort and soothe the sorrowing spirit. Let us seek out the passages and delight ourselves with these heavenly strains.

As to the predictive prophecies, I should like to say much, but I can only give some broad hints. In the first place, let us be sure that we keep before our minds the great event to which prophecy points, the second coming of the Lord. Let us keep that in our hearts and minds, and always look forward to it as the goal of all our hopes.—Dr. Monroe Gibson, on "How to Read the Bible."

Temperance.

Luther on Intemperance.

THE early German nations were noted for their use of strong liquors, drunkenness, and general debauchery. These characteristics remained to some extent even after the gospel had been long introduced. In the days of Luther drunkenness prevailed to an alarming degree. And Luther himself has been brought forward as an apologist for intemperance, and his own example in drinking wine has been pleaded as an excuse for indulgence in drink. But in all this, gross injustice has been done to Luther. It is true he was not a teetotaler; no one was at that time. But he had no sympathy with drunkenness, and condemned it most unsparingly, speaking of it as a disgrace to Germany, and likely to bring down the displeasure of God. In a sermon on 1 Pet. 4:7, “Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer,” lately translated by Rev. E. Huber, D. D., he says:—

“Since God in his great mercy has in recent times given us the light of the gospel in rich measure, it is but just that we Germans should, out of gratitude and to the praise of the same, change our conduct in this particular, lest through other sins, especially through this vice, we bring upon ourselves the displeasure and chastisement of God; for a life so dissolute will certainly be followed by false security and forgetfulness of God, so that the people living like swine, in continual excess, will have no fear of God before their eyes, nor be in a condition to have any concern respecting spiritual things. And if nothing else would induce us to change for the better in this respect, the disgrace that has come upon us in other countries ought to do it; for other nations, particularly England, look upon us with arrogance and scorn on account of it, and call us drunken Germans. For this virtue is still amongst them, that they are not such intemperate and drunken people as we are. Even the Turks are very monks and saints, in comparison with us, and so far removed from this vice that wine and all intoxicating drinks are forbidden by their Mahomet, and disregard of this law is punished with great severity.

“But what use is there in multiplying words on this subject, as the evil has spread till it has become the universal custom of the country—and is no longer confined to the rude, uneducated masses in country towns among the peasantry and in public taverns, but has now made its way into all the cities and almost into every house, and prevails especially amongst the nobility and at the courts of princes. If there are yet any pious parents or God-fearing Christian rulers among us, they ought to strive to diminish this evil, at least to some extent, by opposing it with great earnestness in the case of their children and servants. Pastors and preachers are under obligations to warn the people frequently and faithfully, exhibiting to their view the disfavor and wrath of God, and the injury to soul, body, and substance, that are consequent upon this sin, in the hope that it may do good to some, and influence them to repent. And such as willfully and publicly persist in this vice and refuse to reform, are not to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper, but are to be publicly regarded as non-Christians, and dealt with the same as with adulterers, extortioners, and idolaters.”

After reading such words, certainly no one can claim Luther as one who looked upon the excessive use of liquors with indifference. If he lived in our own day he would be one of the most progressive temperance reformers. In this connection we may remark that it is positively denied that he is an author of the German couplet:—

“Who loves not women, wine, and song, / Is a fool as long as his life is long,”

Though it is often attributed to him and sometimes used as a sign or motto with his name appended to it in drinking saloons.—Presbyterian Banner.

Our Schools and Temperance.

THE public schools should be the great center of temperance teaching; but it is a disappointing matter of fact that not fifty per cent. of the pupils receive anything but the most general and indifferent sort of instruction, and that is given in such a weak and compromising way as to be of little benefit. In the graduating class in one of our best grammar schools I recently found that thirty per cent. of the pupils believe that the moderate use of alcohol is beneficial, and of this number the girls were in the majority.

This state of affairs arises from two great causes. First, the timidity of teachers; and, second, the lack of proper, well-arranged matter and clear ideas as to what to teach. The timidity of teachers is well grounded in many cases, owing to the presence in schools of children from the families of influential rumsellers; but the lack of proper matter is really the seat of the whole difficulty, for if the subject is presented in a proper manner, no opposition may reasonably be looked for. No rumseller wishes his child to become a drunkard, and it is only when the teaching has a political influence, or tends to destroy the child's respect for the parent, that opposition will arise. It is true, of course, that proper teaching must tend to these results, but this must be the product of the pupil's reflection, and not of open, harsh, and repeated attacks upon the rum traffic.

I have often made inquiries among teachers as to the extent and nature of their temperance work, and I am forced to say that in many cases there is a needless lack of intelligence on the subject itself, while in others there exists a lack of judgment as to how to teach it. For the more advanced classes I would urge a careful, conscientious presentation of the subject from a scientific standpoint. Care should be taken to avoid all doubtful ground and statistics, and I would leave the character of the rumseller and license advocates to the tender mercy of an enlightened judgment. But I would teach what seems to me to be of vastly more importance, namely, the evil effect of moderate drinking upon the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of the individual.

I would treat the subject as a part of the physiology and hygiene prescribed by the school committee. It is true that there has been some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of alcohol, but I think we may now safely regard it as slow poison; and, starting with this statement, I would teach and demonstrate its evil effects upon longevity, power to perform difficult feats and careful work, power to endure heat and cold, ability to resist disease, effect upon digestion, circulation, adipose tissue, blood corpuscles, etc., also the effect upon the intellect and moral powers.

It may be said that we are not in possession of the necessary books to make this teaching possible, except by the few teachers who have studied the subject carefully, and attended such lectures as those of Dr. Carpenter. This is true, and that is the one suggestion which I wish to present to the temperance workers. He who shall place in the hands of every teacher a well-arranged and practical work on the subject, prepared by some eminent authority, will do an inestimable good to the cause of temperance in our public schools.

I would not be understood to ignore or underestimate the moral element in temperance, but I suggest this as one way, and one which may be used where others may not.—"A Teacher," in Congregationalist.

NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.

By Alonzo T. Jones

DECEMBER 14—ECCl. 2:1-13.

"I MADE me great works." Solomon built "Millo and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer, . . . and Beth-horon the nether, and Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land, and all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion." 1 Kings 9:15-19.

"MILLO" was a strong fortification, or tower, that protected the city of Jerusalem on the north. It was renewed by Herod, and by him named Hippicus in honor of one of his friends; and as it stood completed by Herod, it was about one hundred feet high. It was made of white marble, each stone about thirty feet long by fifteen feet wide and seven and one-half thick.

"THE wall of Jerusalem" began at Millo, or Hippicus, and extended clear around the city; upon it were sixty towers. As the city grew and spread beyond this wall, a second one was built in after years, and still another, so that at the final destruction of the city by the Romans, there were three very strong walls about it, the outer one having ninety towers, the middle one, forty, and the "old wall," as before stated, having sixty, besides two other large towers corresponding to Hippicus, built also by Herod, and called respectively Phasaeles, and Mariamne.

"HAZOR" was the principal city and stronghold of the whole of North Palestine. "Megiddo" was a fortified city which commanded one of the main passes from the north into the hill country. Gezer was also a fortified city that commanded the Mediterranean coast road of communication between Egypt and Jerusalem. The two "Beth-horon's," "the upper," and "the nether," lay on the boundary line between the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin, and guarded a pass on the road from Gibeon to the Philistine plain. Through this pass was the main way of approach into the interior of the country Philistia on the west, and from Moab and Ammon on the East. Tadmor (Palmyra) was built in an oasis in the desert of Hamath above Syria, "two days' journey from Upper Syria, and one day's journey from the Euphrates, and six long days' journey from Babylon." This was built so that he might control the great caravan trade from the East. Even the ruins of Tadmor are a wonder and an astonishment, and what magnificence must have been displayed when it stood in its splendor.

"I BUILDED me houses." The chief one of these was one hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet broad, and forty-five feet high, and was in three stories. It had a grand porch seventy-five feet long and forty-five broad, and all the pillars and beams and floors were of the finest cedar of Lebanon, and the pillars were so many and so costly, and those in the porch were so tall, that it was called the "House of the forest of Lebanon." 1 Kings 7:1-7. Close to this was the "Tower of David built for an armory," on the walls of which there hung "a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men." Song 4:4. Then there was the great Judgment Hall, lined with cedar wood, where stood the ivory throne inlaid with gold, with its six steps, and two graven lions on each step, and also a lion at each arm; the seat a golden bull, and the back ending in a half-circle. Then there was the house for Pharaoh's daughter, and houses for all his wives and concubines. Then there were the cloisters, and reception rooms, and the magnificent banqueting hall. These all were made with walls and foundations of white stone, many of them twelve, and many fifteen feet in length. All were supported with pillars and beams of cedar and fir, decked with gold and silver, and the roofs and walls ornamented with beautiful stones set with gold and silver, after the style of the temple. Besides all these buildings in Jerusalem, he built a summer palace in Lebanon.

"I PLANTED me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits." Literally, I made me paradises, beautiful parks for pleasure grounds. There was one of these, probably the principal one, about six miles from Jerusalem, at Etham. There he would go in stately progress out of the city in the morning, dressed in snow-white raiment, riding in his chariot of state, which was made of the finest cedar, decked with gold and silver and purple, carpeted with the costliest tapestry, worked by the daughters of Jerusalem. A body-guard of sixty valiant men attended him, of the tallest and handsomest of the young men of Israel, arrayed in Tyrian purple, their long black hair, freshly sprinkled with gold-dust every day, glittering in the sun.

"I MADE me pools of water to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees." These were necessary to keep his parks fresh and beautiful. There were three of them, all in the side of the valley of Etham. The upper pool was 380 feet long, 236 wide at the eastern end, and 229 at the western end, and 25 deep. Below this 160 feet was the middle pool, 423 feet long, 250 broad at the eastern end, and 160 at the western, and 39 feet deep. Below this 248 feet lay the lower pool, 582 feet long, 207 broad at the eastern end, and 148 at the western, and 50 feet deep. Each pool therefore covered somewhat more than two acres. They were partly hewn out of the solid rock, and partly built of masonry. All were lined with cement, all had flights of steps from top to bottom, and all three were connected together by conduits, and by an aqueduct connected with Jerusalem, so that not only his "paradise" at Etham was watered by them, but from them also his palaces and gardens at the city were supplied.

"I GATHERED me also silver and gold." "And all King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver; it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon." 1 Kings 10:21. "And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones." Verse 27. He "had at sea a navy" that went to Ophir, and once in three years came the navy bringing gold, and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. Verse 22. The gold that came to Solomon in a year was about $17,752,640. This with what David left to him, $2,904,000,000, amounted to $2,921,752,640, or enough to have given nearly $390 to each man, woman, and child in the whole kingdom. And all this was "Besides that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country." 1 Kings 10:15. That is, all this was beside the regular customs duties and taxes from his own kingdom. His navy brought at one voyage from Ophir $13,068,000 (2 Chron. 8:18); at another it brought $12,196,800 (1 Kings 9:28); the queen of Sheba gave him $3,484,800 (chap. 10:10), and Hiram also gave him $3,484,800. Chap. 9:14. Surely gold was plenty.

AFTER enjoying everything to the full, withholding not his "heart from any joy," then he could only look on all the works that his hands had wrought and exclaim, "All was vanity and vexation of spirit." The word translated "vanity" means "breath" or "light wind," and its parallel is found in Isa. 40:6 and James 1:10, 11. All vanishes, all fades away, even life itself is but a vapor, appearing but "for a little time and then vanisheth away." James 4:14.

FROM verse 12 it seems that after he had seen all this greatness, and glory, and folly, he turns to the contemplation of himself and the time when he walked in "wisdom," and compares it with the years of his "madness and folly," and as his firm decision he leaves us this apple of gold in a picture of silver:—

Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly AS FAR AS LIGHT EXCELLETH DARKNESS.

Whisky and Public Education

A PRINCIPAL of one of the New York public schools, complains to a prohibition association that teachers dare not talk about temperance in school; because the trustees are elected by the rum interest and are controlled by it.

To put anything pertaining to education into the hands of men devoted to the whisky interest, is like putting a lamb under the watchcare of a wolf. Not but that some whisky men may have an interest in education; but the whisky interest is always antagonistic to everything that is decent, pure, and elevating. Whisky, with its associates, is the devil’s chief agent in the degradation of the human race.

Ruined by Bad Company.

By Charles Haddon Spurgeon

If the company of the wicked does not leave a smear, it will leave a smell; if it be not deadly, it will be dangerous. Some of us are more plastic or malleable than others, and we are the first to be impressed by our surroundings; it is to us, therefore, of the first importance to place ourselves in holy society, and shun all needless association with the godless as we would avoid the plague. I am myself acquainted with many who have been ruined by bad company. Such were C—, who became a reprobate through spending his Sabbaths in excursions and amusements; F—, who was led into peculation and ultimate embezzlement through his friends of the billiard table; H—, who was never worth a penny piece after he had found his heaven in the banquets of the Free Masons; and J—, who went from bad to worse through the company of those who laugh at purity, and call vice pleasure. Indeed, the list is endless, and we shall be conceited to no ordinary degree if we imagine that we shall be safe where so many have fallen never to rise again.—Spurgeon.

Continue reading: The Atonement of the Hebrew Scriptures