reign he began to build the temple. The house that he builded had
seventy cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and thirty in
height, and the porch tofore the temple was twenty cubits long after the
measure of the breadth of the temple, and had ten cubits of breadth
tofore the face of the temple, and for to write the curiosity and work
of the temple, and the necessaries, the tables and cost that was done in
gold, silver and latten, it passeth my cunning to express and English
them. Ye that be clerks may see it in the Second Book of Kings and the
Second Book of Paralipomenon. It is wonder to hear the costs and
expenses that was made in that temple, but I pass over. It was on making
seven years, and his palace was thirteen years ere it was finished. He
made in the temple an altar of pure gold, and a table to set on the
loaves of proposition of gold, five candlesticks of gold on the right
side and five on the left side, and many other things, and took all the
vessels of gold and silver that his father David had sanctified and
hallowed, and brought them into the treasury of the house of our Lord.
After this he assembled all the noblest and greatest of birth of them of
Israel, with the princes of the tribes and dukes of the families, for to
bring the Ark of God from the city of David, Sion, into the temple. And
the priests and Levites took the Ark and bare it and all the vessels of
the sanctuary that were in the tabernacle. King Solomon, with all the
multitude of the children that were there, went tofore the Ark and
offered sheep and oxen without estimation and number.
And the priests set the Ark in the house of our Lord in the oracle of
the temple, in sancta sanctorum, under the wings of cherubim. In the ark
was nothing but the two tables of Moses of stone which Moses had put in.
And then Solomon blessed our Lord tofore all the people, and thanked him
that he had suffered him to make an house unto his name, and besought
our Lord that he whosomever prayed our Lord for any petition in that
temple, that he of his mercy would hear him and be merciful to him. And
our Lord appeared to him when the edifice was accomplished perfectly,
and said to Solomon: I have heard thy prayer and thine oration that thou
hast prayed tofore me. I have sanctified and hallowed this house that
thou hast edified for to put my name therein for evermore, and my eyes
and heart shall be thereon always. And if thou walk before me like as
thy father walked in the simplicity of heart and in equity, and wilt do
all that I have commanded thee, and keep my judgments and laws, I shall
set the throne of thy reign upon Israel evermore, like as I have said to
thy father David, saying: There shall not be taken away a man of thy
generation from the reign and seat of Israel. If ye avert and turn from
me, ye and your sons, not following ne keeping my commandments and
ceremonies that I have showed tofore you, but go and worship strange
gods, and honor them, I shall cast away Israel from the face of the
earth that I have given to them, and the temple that I have hallowed to
my name, I shall cast it away from my sight. And it shall be a fable and
proverb, and thy house an example shall be to all people; every man that
shall go thereby shall be abashed and astonied, and shall say: Why hath
God done thus to this land and to thy house? And they shall answer: For
they have forsaken their Lord God that brought them out of the land of
Egypt, and have followed strange gods, and them adored and worshipped,
and therefore God hath brought on them all this evil: here may every man
take ensample how perilous and dreadful it is to break the commandment
of God.
Twenty years after that Solomon had edified the temple of God and his
house, and finished it perfectly, Hiram the king of Tyre went for to see
towns that Solomon had given to him, and they pleased him not. Hiram had
sent to King Solomon an hundred and twenty besants of gold, which he had
spent on the temple and his house, and on the wall of Jerusalem and
other towns and places that he had made. Solomon was rich and glorious
that the fame ran, of his sapience and wisdom and of his building and
dispense in his house, through the world, insomuch that the queen of
Sheba came from far countries to see him and to tempt him in demands and
questions. And she came into Jerusalem with much people and riches, with
camels charged with aromatics and gold infinite. And she came and spake
to King Solomon all that ever she had in her heart. And Solomon taught
her in all that ever she purposed tofore him. She could say nothing but
that the king answered to her, there was nothing hid from him. The queen
of Sheba then seeing all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had
builded, and the meat and service of his table, the habitacles of his
servants, the order of the ministers, their clothing and array, his
butlers and officers, and the sacrifices that he offered in the house of
our Lord, when she saw all these things, she had no spirit to answer,
but she said to King Solomon: The word is true that I heard in my land,
of thy words and thy wisdom, and I believed not them that told it to me,
unto the time that I myself came and have seen it with mine eyes, and I
have now well seen and proved that the half was not told to me. Thy
sapience is more, and thy works also, than the tidings that I heard.
Blessed be thy servants, and blessed be these that stand always tofore
thee and hear thy sapience and wisdom, and thy Lord God be blessed whom
thou hast pleased, and hath set thee upon the throne of Israel, for so
much as God of Israel loveth thee and hath ordained thee a king for to
do righteousness and justice. She gave then to the king an hundred and
twenty besants of gold, many aromatics, and gems precious. There were
never seen tofore so many aromatics ne so sweet odors smelling as the
queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all that ever she desired and
demanded of him, and after returned into her country and land. The
weight of pure gold that was offered every year to Solomon was six
hundred and sixty-six talents of gold, except that that the merchants
offered, and all they that sold, and all the kings of Arabia and dukes
of that land. Solomon made two hundred shields of the purest gold and
set them in the house of Lebanon; he made him also a throne of ivory
which was great and was clad with gold, which had six grees or steps,
which was richly wrought with two lions of gold holding the seat above,
and twelve small lions standing upon the steps, on every each twain,
here and there. There was never such a work in no realm. And all the
vessels that King Solomon drank of were of gold, and the ceiling of the
house of Lebanon in which his shields of gold were in was of the most
pure gold. Silver was of no price in the days of King Solomon, for the
navy of the king, with the navy of Hiram, went in three years once into
Tarsis and brought them thence gold and silver, teeth of elephants and
great riches. The King Solomon was magnified above all the kings of the
world in riches and wisdom, and all the world desired to see the cheer
and visage of Solomon, and to hear his wisdom that God had given to him.
Every man brought to him gifts, vessels of gold and silver, clothes and
armor for war, aromatics, horses and mules every year. Solomon gathered
together chariots and horsemen; he had a thousand four hundred chariots
and cars, and twelve thousand horsemen, and were lodged in small cities
and towns about Jerusalem by the king. There was as great abundance and
plenty of gold and silver in those days in Jerusalem as stones or
sycamores that grow in the field, and horses were brought to him from
Egypt and Chao. What shall I all day write of the riches, glory and
magnificence of King Solomon? It was so great that it cannot be
expressed, for there was never none like to him, ne never shall none
come after him like unto him. He made the book of the parables
containing thirty-one chapters, the book of the Canticles, the book of
Ecclesiastes, containing twelve chapters, and the book of Sapience
containing nineteen chapters. This King Solomon loved overmuch women,
and specially strange women of other sects; as King Pharaoh's daughters
and many other of the gentiles. He had seven hundred wives which were as
queens, and three hundred concubines, and these women turned his heart.
For when he was old he so doted and loved them that they made him honor
their strange gods, and worshipped Ashtareth, Chemosh and Moloch, idols
of Zidonia, of Moabites, and Ammonites, and made to them Tabernacles for
to please his wives and concubines, wherefore God was wroth with him,
and said to him: Because thou hast not observed my precepts and my
commandments that I commanded thee, I shall cut thy kingdom and divide
it and give it to thy servant but not in thy day, I shall not do it for
love that I had to David thy father; but from the hand of thy son I
shall cut it but not all, I shall reserve to him one tribe for David's
love, and Jerusalem that I have chosen. And after this divers kings
became adversaries to Solomon, and was never in peace after.
It is said, but I find it not in the Bible, that Solomon repented him
much of this sin of idolatry and did much penance therefor, for he let
him be drawn through Jerusalem and beat himself with rods and scourges,
that the blood flowed in the sight of all the people. He reigned upon
all Israel in Jerusalem forty years, and died and was buried with his
fathers in the city of David, and Rehoboam his son reigned after him.
THE HISTORY OF REHOBOAM
After Solomon, reigned his son Rehoboam. He came to Sichem and thither
came all the people for to ordain him king. Jeroboam and all the
multitude of Israel spake to Rehoboam, and said: Thy father set on us an
hard yoke and great impositions, now thou hast not so much need,
therefore less it and minish it, and ease us of the great and hard
burden and we shall serve thee. Rehoboam answered and said: Go ye and
come again the third day and ye shall have an answer. When the people
was departed, Rehoboam made a counsel of the seniors and old men that
had assisted his father Solomon whiles he lived, and said to them: What
say ye? and counsel me that I may answer to the people, which said to
Rohoboam: If thou wilt obey and agree to this people, and agree to their
petition, and speak fair and friendly to them, they shall serve thee
always. But Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men, and called the
young men that were of his age, and asked of them counsel. And the young
men that had been nourished with him bade him say to the people in this
wise: Is not my finger greater than the back of my father? If my father
hath laid on you a heavy burden, I shall add and put more to your
burden; my father beat you with scourges, and I shall beat you with
scorpions. The third day after, Jeroboam and all the people came to
Rehoboam to have their answer, and Rehoboam left the counsel of the old
men, and said to them like as the young men had counselled him. And anon
the people of Israel forsook Rehoboam, and of twelve tribes, there abode
with him no more but the tribe of Judah and Benjamin. And the other ten
tribes departed and made Jeroboam their king, and never returned unto
the house of David after unto this day. And thus for sin of Solomon, and
because Rehoboam would not do after the counsel of the old men, but was
counselled by young men, the ten tribes of Israel forsook him, and
departed from Jerusalem, and served Jeroboam, and ordained him king upon
Israel. Anon after this, Jeroboam fell to idolatry and great division
was ever after between the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel. And
so reigned divers kings each after other in Jerusalem after Rehoboam,
and in Israel after Jeroboam. And here I leave all the history and make
an end of the book of Kings for this time, etc. For ye that list to know
how every king reigned after other, ye may find it in the first chapter
of Saint Matthew which is read on Christmas day in the morning before Te
Deum, which is the genealogy of our Lady.
A LITTLE MAID
BY THEODORE T. MUNGER
[From "Lamps and Paths," by courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]
In old days we read of angels who came and took men by the hand, and led
them away from the city of Destruction. We see no white-robed angels
now; yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put
into theirs, and they are gently guided toward a bright and calm land,
so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be that of a little
child.--GEORGE ELIOT
As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow,
But crushed, or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
--GOLDSMITH: _The Captivity_
_"Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man
with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given
deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a
leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away
captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on
Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress. Would God my lord were
with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his
leprosy."_--2 KINGS v. 1-3
I think upon the whole that old stories are better than new ones; I
mean, stories of old times. It is perhaps because only the very best are
remembered while the poorer ones are forgotten, so that those which have
come down to us through past ages are the choice ones selected from a
great number that pleased people for a while, but not well nor long
enough to get fixed in their minds.
Of all old stories, I hardly know a better one than this of Naaman and
the little maid from Samaria. It is full of human nature; that is, it
shows that people acted and felt three thousand years ago just as they
do now: they were kind and sympathetic, and proud and grateful and
covetous and deceitful, just as people are nowadays. And the story has a
fine romantic setting; that is, its incidents take hold of our fancy and
charm us;--a little girl stolen in war and carried to a foreign country
and put into the house of a great general, who falls very ill and is
cured in a wonderful way, and so on. I think it will please us all to
hear it over again.
Syria and Israel stood to each other very much like Germany and
Switzerland. One was a great, rich country, with fine rivers like the
Rhine and Danube, and a capital city so beautiful that it was called
"the eye of the East"; while Israel was a small country, full of
mountains, and with only one small river that ran nearly dry in summer.
To tell the truth, Syria looked down on Israel, and--what is
worse--often made war on it. In those days war was even more cruel and
senseless than it is now; for it was not confined to the armies that
fought and captured one another, but extended to women and children, who
were often seized, carried away from their homes into the country of the
enemy, and made slaves. It is bad and senseless enough for men to stand
up and stab one another as they used to in old times, or shoot one
another as they do now; but to carry a mother away from her children, or
take a little girl away from her home and playmates and make a slave of
her, is something worse. But it was often done in those ancient days, as
you will learn when you read history, and the story of the siege of
Troy, which sprang out of stealing a beautiful woman.
There were frequent wars between Syria and Israel. Israel had once
conquered Syria, and Syria had broken away, and so it went on back and
forth, year after year. When our story begins, Naaman, a great general,
had delivered his country from Israel, and brought home with him a
little Hebrew girl, who was so beautiful and sweet in her ways that he
gave her to his wife on his return from the war. A strange present, you
say, but it proved a very valuable one. It seems to us very cruel. One
would think that if Naaman and his wife loved this little girl--and I am
sure they did--they would have sent her back to her home, for she must
have had a heartbreaking time of it at first; but people were not kind
in that way in those days. Yes, I am sure they loved her and were kind
to her, for the simple reason that she evidently loved them; and I am
also sure that the reason they loved her was that they could not help
it, as we shall see further on.
Not long after the war, Naaman was attacked with a disease so dreadful
and repulsive that I cannot describe it to you. Let us be thankful that
leprosy is unknown here. It is not only incurable, but as it goes on it
becomes so terrible that one cannot stay at home with his family, but
must go out and live alone, or with other lepers, and wait for death,
which often does not happen for years. It was a sad time for the great
Naaman when he discovered that it had seized him. He felt well and
strong, but the fearful signs made it sure. It was a sadder time when he
told his wife; for both knew that the day would soon come when they
could no longer stay together at home, and that he must leave beautiful
Damascus, and give up his place in the army, and go off into the
mountains and live alone, or with others like himself. The saddest
feature of all was that there was no hope: all this was sure to take
place. If you have ever been in a house where some one is very ill and
likely to die, or some terrible accident has occurred, you have felt
what a gloom overhangs it, and have been glad to escape from it and get
out under the open sky. But our little Hebrew girl could not escape. She
must stay through it all, and wait on Naaman's wife, and see her weep
and Naaman's strong face grow sadder every day. Now I think we shall
begin to see what a rare, noble, sweet child this was that we are
talking about. What a pity that we do not know her name--for she is a
nameless child! I would like to call her Anna if I had any right to
leave off the _H_ that the Hebrews put before and after this beautiful
name. And I should not change it by turning the _a_ at the close into
_ie_, as so many young people--and older ones, too, who ought to know
better--are in the habit of doing; for I never could understand why
girls with so noble names as Anna and Mary and Helen and Margaret and
Caroline should change them into the weak and silly forms that we hear
every day. This change, which usually shortens the name and ends it with
an _ie_, is called a _diminutive_, which, according to Worcester, means
"a thing little of its kind," and so may well enough be used in the
nursery; but that grown women should use it seems to me foolish and even
ignoble, and I often fear it may indicate a lack of fine sentiment. We
do not know the name of our little maiden, but we can safely imagine her
appearance for two reasons: we know her circumstances and her character.
Is it not quite sure that when Naaman selected from his captives a
little girl to wait on his wife, he would take the most beautiful one?
When we make presents to those we love, we always get the best we can.
Now we can go a step further, and ask what made her beautiful _in such a
way_ that Naaman thought she would please his wife. It must have been
her sweet and amiable expression; and that came from her character, for
nothing else can make beauty of this sort. And so we picture her with
black, wavy hair and soft, dark eyes, with red cheeks glowing through an
olive-colored skin, lips like a pomegranate, a sweet, patient, loving
expression, and a voice "gentle and low" and full of sympathy and
readiness. I am very sure about her voice and expression, because I know
her character. I never have seen any one with a loving and helpful
spirit who had not a gentle voice and a sweet expression. I think she
must have been about twelve years old; for if she had been younger she
would not have known all about Elisha, and if older she would not have
been called "a _little_ maid."
When the trouble came upon Naaman's family, she felt it grievously, and
was more attentive and gentle in her services than ever. Just here she
showed the beauty of her character. She had been cruelly wronged--stolen
away from her country and home, and made a slave without hope of ever
seeing them again--and so might naturally feel revengeful, and say that
Naaman's leprosy was a punishment for the wrong he had done her. But
instead she pitied him, and in her sympathy with his sufferings forgot
her own. So, as she brooded on the trouble, she happened to remember one
day that Elisha had cured people who were very ill, and done many
wonderful things, and she said to her mistress, "Would God my lord were
with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his
leprosy." Probably Naaman's wife questioned her closely about Elisha,
and got at all she knew about him, and so heard about the child that
fell sick among the reapers, and the poor widow whose two sons were to
be sold as slaves, and the mantle of Elijah, that Elisha had caught upon
the banks of the Jordan, with which he smote the waters. At any rate,
she heard enough to awaken some hope, and so told her husband what our
little maid had said. When people are hopelessly ill, they are willing
to try anything; a drowning man will catch at a straw, and Naaman caught
at this little straw of hope that the wind of war had blown across his
path. He thought it over and said to himself, "It is my only chance; no
one here can do anything for me. I will go down to Samaria and find
Elisha. I have often heard that the prophets there did wonderful things;
if what the little maid says of the boy among the reapers is true,
perhaps Elisha can cure me." And so he went; but it was very
humiliating. He thought of Israel and the little city of Samaria and the
Jordan in a scornful way, comparing them with his splendid Damascus, and
its green, beautiful plain, thirty miles wide, and the great river
Abana, that gushed from the side of the mountain, and flowed through and
all about the city, making the whole country one vast garden. He
despised, too, the people of Israel. They were rude and poor and
ignorant, while his own people were rich and cultivated. Perhaps he had
borne himself proudly when he was at war there; and now to go back and
ask favors--to ask for himself what he could not get at home--was
humiliating indeed. But he made the best of it; and to cover his pride
and make it seem as though he were not asking favors, he took with him
an immense amount of silver and gold, and ten suits of raiment--perhaps
of linen _damask_, that was first made in Damascus.
I shall not follow the story further, except to say that because Naaman
went in such a proud spirit, Elisha used every means to make him humble.
He seemed to be anxious to send Naaman home, not only a well, but a
better man, and to teach him that there were other things to be thought
of than great rivers, and fine cities, and temples of Rimmon.
Especially he wanted to teach him that the one, true God could make a
small, rough nation greater and stronger than one that worshipped idols.
Naaman went home cured of his leprosy, with some earth to make an altar
of, and all his gold and silver and fine garments, except what the
foolish Gehazi got from him by lying. How Naaman proposed to act when he
should get home and be forced to go with the king into the temple of
Rimmon, you will find discussed in the second chapter of the second part
of "School Days at Rugby." My opinion is that Elisha told him he must
settle that matter with his own conscience; but I can imagine that when
he had worshipped God before the altar built of the earth brought from
the Jordan, and then went into the temple of Rimmon and did what the
king did, his conscience must have troubled him.