FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54  
55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>   >|  
es, had the effect of widening the range of knowledge of Israel as a nation, and of stirring her up to an ambition to excel her neighbors in affairs of peace as well as in those of war. Solomon's peaceful and wise reign, characterized as it was by commercial prosperity, gave the people both the time and means for cultivating the arts. In study and in wisdom the king was the leader of his day and generation. He was learned in political economy, a great king. He was learned in music and poetry, having composed some of the most beautiful of the Psalms, such as the second. But in cultivating the fine arts he did not neglect the physical sciences, for he was a botanist, writing of all kinds of trees and plants; and he was a natural historian, writing works on beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes. It would be most interesting to see these science primers prepared by Solomon, and compare them with what we see on the same subjects in our own day. But the Bible has not preserved them, and they have long centuries ago passed into oblivion. Solomon's knowledge was not of that shallow sort which is limited to the sphere of earthly material, "seen things;" for he was wise with that deeper knowledge which has for its object God and the human soul, and their natures and movements in their natural relations. This wisdom is illustrated and handed down to us in his Proverbs of which we are told he spoke three thousand. A portion of these is in the Book of Proverbs, the others are lost to us. In his poetry also was crystallized much of his wisdom. This consisted of one thousand and five songs, all of which have gone down in the flood of years, with the exception of the Song of Solomon, which is an epithalamium, in which pure wedded love is incarnated. It is a sort of poetry of the family relations, and, therefore, worthy a place in the sacred canon. Taken literally and read with a pure heart, it is eminently fitted to spiritualize the family relations. This theory of this much discussed portion of Solomon's writings by no means shuts out the more spiritual use of the book, wherein we see in it the Church represented by the bride and God by the bridegroom. In Ecclesiastes we have the latest conclusions of Solomon's moral wisdom. Read in the light of its general scope rather than the dim light of detached portions, it appears as the confessions of a humbled, penitent, believing, godly man, who, after piety followed by apostasy, comes back
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54  
55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Solomon
 

wisdom

 

relations

 

poetry

 
knowledge
 

family

 
writing
 

learned

 
Proverbs
 
portion

thousand

 

natural

 

cultivating

 

penitent

 

consisted

 
exception
 
incarnated
 

appears

 

wedded

 
confessions

crystallized

 

epithalamium

 

humbled

 

apostasy

 

illustrated

 

handed

 

believing

 

Church

 
represented
 
spiritual

bridegroom

 
general
 

conclusions

 

Ecclesiastes

 

latest

 

literally

 

sacred

 
worthy
 

eminently

 
discussed

writings

 

theory

 

fitted

 
detached
 
spiritualize
 

portions

 

earthly

 

Psalms

 

beautiful

 

composed