do not contain the
Christian spirit of forgiveness, nor that of love to one's enemy. They are
still narrowed to the range of the Jewish land and nation, and do not
embrace humanity. They are mountain summits of faith, rising into the pure
air and light of day from hidden depths, and appearing as islands in the
ocean. They reach, here and there, the level of the vast continent, though
not broad enough themselves to become the home of all races and nations.

There is nothing in the Vedas, nothing in the Avesta, nothing in the
sacred books of Egypt, or the philosophy of Greece and Rome, which so
unites the grandeur of omnipotence with the tenderness of a father toward
his child.

Sec. 5. Solomon; or, the Religious Relapse.

We have seen how the religion of Abraham, as the family worship of the
Supreme Being, was developed into that of Moses, as the national worship
of a just and holy King. We have seen it going onward from that, ascending
in the inspirations of David into trust in an infinite God as a friend,
and love to him as a father. We now come to a period of relapse. Under
Solomon and his successors, this religion became corrupted and degraded.
Its faith was changed into doubt, its lofty courage into the fear of kings
and tyrants, its worship of the Most High into adoration of the idols of
its neighbors. The great increase of power and wealth in the hands of
Solomon corrupted his own heart and that of his people. Luxury came in;
and, as in Rome the old puritanic virtues were dissolved by the desire for
wealth and pleasure, so it happened among the Jews. Then came the
retribution, in the long captivity in Babylon, and the beginning of a new
and better life under this hard discipline. And then comes the age of the
Prophets, who gradually became the teachers of a higher and broader faith.
So, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem, they came back purified, and
prepared to become once more loyal subjects of Jehovah.

The principle of hereditary succession, but not of primogeniture, had been
established by an agreement between David and the people when he proposed
erecting a Temple at Jerusalem. He had appointed his son Solomon as his
successor before his own death. With the entrance of Solomon we have an
entirely different personality from any whom we have thus far met. With
him also is inaugurated a new period and a different age. The age of Moses
was distinguished as that of law,--on the side of God absolute autho