to piety with the conclusion that after all, "the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Through his writings and sayings Solomon's genius flashed from Jerusalem
into the surrounding darkness of the heathen nations, and lighted by its
rays, as mariners by the beacon in the light-house tower, there came of
all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth,
which had heard of his wisdom, (1 Kings x. 1-10.) The celebrated visit
of the Queen of Sheba is a deeply interesting illustration of these
royal visits to the court of Israel's splendid king.

Such was King Solomon the magnificent, and such the life of one of
earth's most famous men. But, after all, he is a striking illustration
of Plato's saying, that "Princes are never without flatterers to seduce
them, ambition to deprave them, and desires to corrupt them." So,
forgetting that as a king he was God's vicegerent, he lived more and
more to gratify his lusts and ambitions, and to please his flatterers,
especially his heathen wives. These finally seduced him into permitting
temples to be built to Moloch and their other false gods. This ended in
Solomon's becoming idolatrous himself. Then his wealth gradually melted
away, his allies plotted against him, and, in the midst of life, being
about fifty-eight years old, he died in the year 975 B.C., leaving a
terrible legacy to his sons: a corrupted religion, a depleted treasury,
and a discontented and broken people.

Although there is every reason to believe that Solomon died a penitent
man, yet his sins and the consequent wretchedness of soul, and the ruin
of his kingdom, teach most emphatically the weakness of human nature,
even when accompanied by the greatest genius, the perils of material
prosperity, and the real insufficiency of all possible earthly good to
satisfy the wants of the soul of man.

[Signature of the author.]

LYCURGUS[5]

By REV. JOSEPH T. DURYEA

(About 884-820 B.C.)

[Footnote 5: Copyright. 1894. by Selmar Hess.]

Scholars generally agree in the judgment that Lycurgus was a real
person. It is probable that he was born in the ninth century B.C., and
that, in the later part of the same century (850-820), he was an
important, if not the principal, agent in the reconstruction of the
Dorian state of Sparta, in the Peloponnesus. According to Herodotus, he
was the uncle of King Labotas, of the royal line of Eurysthenes. Others,
whom Plutarch follows, descr