wrong: but you will never be as wise as Solomon, for God has said that no one shall be But there is one thing as wise as he was. still better than Solomon's kind of wisdom, and you may have it if you ask What is that? The Holy Spirit. God for it. If the Spirit is in your heart, you will know God, and you will love him. God has promised to give it you. He has said, "Ask, and ye shall have." I am glad when you are wise enough to answer questions right, or to behave well: but I wish most that you should love God in your heart, and try to please him. That is a better kind of wisdom than Solomon's. Now if the Lord should say to me, "O give me wisdom from on high!" Yet wisdom is the only thing, It would not make me truly wise Or all the fishes in the seas. Or beasts and birds, or flowers and trees. N 134 SOLOMON, OR THE WISE CHOICE. Wisdom to love the thing that's right, Do you remember what God had said that Solomon should build? A house for the Lord. This house would be called a temple; and it would be very beautiful. Solomon had a great many things to build it of: gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and stones, and wood; and he had a great many servants to build it. David his father had told him how to build it. How did David know how to build it? God had told David, and he had written it down. Solomon did not build the temple upon Mount Zion: but upon another high hill in Jerusalem. Solomon desired a great many large stones to be laid upon the ground for the beginning of the house; then he desired his servants to cut down a great many trees, and he had some more wood which David had given to him. Solomon built the walls of wood, and he put wood at the top; and Solomon covered the inside of the house with gold. How beautiful the house must have been inside! How bright it must have shone when the candlesticks were lighted! for So lomon made ten candlesticks of gold, to give light to the house. Solomon put other beautiful things in the temple, besides the ten candlesticks. He put ten tables for bread, and a golden altar to burn sweet spices in the midst. And Solomon made a court round the temple, with a stone wall round the court: and he put in the court ten large basins of brass to wash the animals in before they were sacrificed: and he made one basin larger than the rest: and he made twelve oxen of brass, and put this large basin on the backs of the oxen and he had the basin filled with water for the priests to wash in. In the court Solomon placed a very large brass altar that he had made. It was so large that a great many lambs, and bullocks, and goats might be burned on it at the same time. At last the temple was quite finished, and it was the most beautiful house in the world. It could not be moved about as the tabernacle had been in the wilderness: but Solomon never wished to move it from Jerusalem. was a great deal larger than the tabernacle. It |