ce of that Christ whose sufferings are
represented by the crucifix before which he bows; and be raised in due
time out of all his poverties into the glorious home built for him and
built for us by 'Him who maketh the Seven Stars and Orion.'"

THE QUEEN'S VISIT.

"Behold, the half was not told me."--I KINGS x: 7.

Solomon had resolved that Jerusalem should be the center of all
sacred, regal, and commercial magnificence. He set himself to work,
and monopolized the surrounding desert as a highway for his caravans.
He built the city of Palmyra around one of the principal wells of the
East, so that all the long trains of merchandise from the East were
obliged to stop there, pay toll, and leave part of their wealth in the
hands of Solomon's merchants. He manned the fortress Thapsacus at the
chief ford of the Euphrates, and put under guard everything that
passed there. The three great products of Palestine--wine pressed from
the richest clusters and celebrated all the world over; oil which in
that hot country is the entire substitute for butter and lard, and was
pressed from the olive branches until every tree in the country became
an oil well; and honey which was the entire substitute for
sugar--these three great products of the country Solomon exported, and
received in return fruits and precious woods and the animals of every
clime.

He went down to Ezion-geber and ordered a fleet of ships to be
constructed, oversaw the workmen, and watched the launching of the
flotilla which was to go out on more than a year's voyage, to bring
home the wealth of the then known world. He heard that the Egyptian
horses were large and swift, and long-maned and round-limbed, and he
resolved to purchase them, giving eighty-five dollars apiece for them,
putting the best of these horses in his own stall, and selling the
surplus to foreign potentates at great profit.

He heard that there was the best of timber on Mount Lebanon, and he
sent out one hundred and eighty thousand men to hew down the forest
and drag the timber through the mountain gorges, to construct it into
rafts to be floated to Joppa, and from thence to be drawn by ox-teams
twenty-five miles across the land to Jerusalem. He heard that there
were beautiful flowers in other lands. He sent for them, planted them
in his own gardens, and to this very day there are flowers found in
the ruins of that city such as are to be found in no other part of
Palestine, the lineal de