hear the shout of the drivers, and I
see the dust-covered caravan showing that they come from far away. Cry
the news up to the palace. The Queen of Sheba advances. Let all the
people come out to see. Let the mighty men of the land come out on the
palace corridors. Let Solomon come down the stairs of the palace
before the queen has alighted. Shake out the cinnamon, and the
saffron, and the calamus, and the frankincense, and pass it into the
treasure house. Take up the diamonds until they glitter in the sun.

The Queen of Sheba alights. She enters the palace. She washes at the
bath. She sits down at the banquet. The cup-bearers bow. The meat
smokes. The music trembles in the dash of the waters from the molten
sea. Then she rises from the banquet, and walks through the
conservatories, and gazes on the architecture, and she asks Solomon
many strange questions, and she learns about the religion of the
Hebrews, and she then and there becomes a servant of the Lord God.

She is overwhelmed. She begins to think that all the spices she
brought, and all the precious woods which are intended to be turned
into harps and psalteries and into railings for the causeway between
the temple and the palace, and the one hundred and eighty thousand
dollars in money--she begins to think that all these presents amount
to nothing in such a place, and she is almost ashamed that she has
brought them, and she says within herself: "I heard a great deal
about this place, and about this wonderful religion of the Hebrews,
but I find it far beyond my highest anticipations. I must add more
than fifty per cent. to what has been related. It exceeds everything
that I could have expected. The half--the half was not told me."

Learn from this subject what a beautiful thing it is when social
position and wealth surrender themselves to God. When religion comes
to a neighborhood, the first to receive it are the women. Some men say
it is because they are weak-minded. I say it is because they have
quicker perception of what is right, more ardent affection and
capacity for sublimer emotion. After the women have received the
Gospel then all the distressed and the poor of both sexes, those who
have no friends, accept Jesus. Last of all come the people of
affluence and high social position. Alas, that it is so!

If there are those here to-day who have been favored of fortune, or,
as I might better put it, favored of God, surrender all you have and
all you expect t