is a prisoner of the Inquisition.
Napoleon masters a continent, and expires on a rock in the ocean.
Mirabeau dies of despair when he has kindled the torch of revolution.
The poetic soul of Burns passes away in poverty and moral eclipse.
Madness overtakes the cool satirist Swift, and mental degeneracy is the
final condition of the fertile-minded Scott. The high-souled Hamilton
perishes in a petty quarrel, and curses overwhelm Webster in the halls
of his early triumphs. What a confirmation of the experience of Solomon!
"Vanity of vanities" write on all walls, in all the chambers of
pleasure, in all the palaces of pride!

This is the burden of the preaching of Solomon; but it is also the
lesson which is taught by all the records of the past, and all the
experiences of mankind. Yet it is not sad when one considers the dignity
of the soul and its immortal destinies. It is sad only when the
disenchantment of illusions is not followed by that holy fear which is
the beginning of wisdom,--that exalted realism which we believe at last
sustained the soul of the Preacher as he was hastening to that country
from whose bourn no traveller returns.

ELIJAH.

NINTH CENTURY B.C.

DIVISION OF THE JEWISH KINGDOM.

Evil days fell upon the Israelites after the death of Solomon. In the
first place their country was rent by political divisions, disorders,
and civil wars. Ten of the tribes, or three quarters of the population,
revolted from Rehoboam, Solomon's son and successor, and took for their
king Jeroboam,--a valiant man, who had been living for several years at
the court of Shishak, king of Egypt, exiled by Solomon for his too great
ambition. Jeroboam had been an industrious, active-minded,
strong-natured youth, whom Solomon had promoted and made much of. The
prophet Ahijah had privately foretold to him that, on account of the
idolatries tolerated by Solomon, ten of the tribes should be rent away
from, the royal house and given to him. The Lord promised him the
kingdom of Israel, and (if he would be loyal to the faith) the
establishment of a dynasty,--"a sure house." Jeroboam made choice of
Shechem for his capital; and from political reasons,--for fear that the
people should, according to their custom, go up to Jerusalem to worship
at the great festivals of the nation, and perhaps return to their
allegiance to the house of David, while perhaps also to compromise with
their already corrupted and unspiritualized religious s