atitude to his benefactor was a disgrace to him.

He fostered and used, as far as he dared, the discontent which smouldered
in the tribe of Ephraim, as the result partly of jealousy of Judah, and
partly of restiveness under extravagant expenditure and increasing
taxation, and this treachery went on until he was expelled the country by
Solomon, and driven out as an exile into Egypt, where, however, he still
carried out his ambitious schemes, till his chance came under Rehoboam.

Many a man kicks away the ladder by which he rose to fortune. He likes
to divest himself of the past wherein he needed help, for it was a time
of humiliation, and by cutting off association with former friends, would
fain lead people to believe that his success was entirely due to his own
cleverness. Even his own parents are sometimes neglected and ignored,
and these, to whom he owed his life, who cared for him in his helpless
infancy and wayward youth, are left unhelped. "_Cursed is the man who
setteth light by his father or mother_."

But though we naturally cry "shame" upon such an one, it is possible that
we ourselves are acting an unfilial part towards our Heavenly Father.
And the more He prospers us the greater is the danger of our forgetting
Him, who crowns us with loving-kindness and tender mercies.

2. Jeroboam's sin against Solomon was as nothing compared with his sin
against God.

From the first he seems to have been an irreligious man. He regarded
religion as a kind of restraint on the lower orders, and therefore useful
in government. Priests and prophets constituted, in his opinion, the
vanguard of the police, and they should, therefore, be supported and
encouraged by the State. As to the form religion assumed, he was not
particular. In Egypt he had become accustomed to the ritual of Apis and
Mnevis, which was by no means so gross and demoralising as the idolatry
of the Canaanites, and he evidently could not see why the worship of
Jehovah could not be carried on by those who believed in Him through the
use of emblems, and, if need be, of idols. Therefore he set about the
establishment of the cult of Apis, and "_made two calves of gold, and set
the one in Bethel and the other put he in Dan_." This was the sin for
which he was condemned again and again with almost wearisome iteration.
He was by no means a fanatical idolater, and this act of his was simply
the dictate of his worldly policy. He was engaged in the establishme