g and fierce struggle and immured in
dark depths and caves of the sea. But let us return to sober history.
The only trustworthy account of the wise king available, is that which
is written in the Bible and in the crumbling ruins of his great
buildings and public and private works in the East, especially in and
around Jerusalem.

He was ten years of age when the rebellion of his older brother,
Absalom, fell almost like a death-blow upon the brow and heart of his
aged father David, with whom he shared the perils of flight and a brief
exile. Not many years later Adonijah, another brother, with the
connivance of Joab, David's rugged old general, and Abiathar, the elder
high priest, attempting to steal the throne, Zadok the high priest,
Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the most famous and heroic of Israel's
captains after Joab, together with Bathsheba, the beautiful and
ambitious mother of Solomon, succeeded in thwarting Adonijah's base
designs and roused in David for a short time his old-time energy.
Whereupon he placed Solomon upon the throne while yet a young man only
fifteen or twenty years of age.

Upon taking up his sceptre Solomon first of all, removed his father's
enemies and the heads of the conspiracies which had been made against
the throne, not even hesitating to cut off Joab, whose deeds of prowess
had added a marvellous lustre to the military fame of Israel. Solomon
now sat secure upon his throne, the undisputed monarch of the wide
territory secured by the conquests of his great father. About this time,
in order to strengthen his kingdom, he married a daughter of the
Pharaoh of Northern Egypt, an alliance which pleased the people, for it
showed that their king was a king among kings. The end of this political
alliance, however, was not as brilliant as its beginning promised;
because, although Egypt was at that time the most mighty nation of the
world, because the most wealthy and civilized, yet it was divided into
two kingdoms, and after the lapse of years, the Pharaoh of the united
kingdom did not hesitate to become Solomon's foe because one of his
wives had been an Egyptian princess.

After removing the enemies of the throne, and marrying the daughter of
Pharaoh, Solomon repaired to the heights of Gibeon, six miles north of
Jerusalem, a spot far-famed as the home of the Tabernacle of the
Congregation, which was the original Tent of the wanderings. On the
brazen altar in front of the Tabernacle the young ki