NOTE. The following sketch of that time of deterioration is given by Principal Miller, in "The Least of All Lands,” p. 215:

JJ

The history from Joshua to Samuel is one of continual and steady degradation. It is relieved, no doubt, by bursts of faith and valor; but, so far as our scanty materials enable us to judge, each outburst when it came found the people in a more hopeless state than the one before it. And, speaking roughly, each of them was in itself a meaner and weaker thing than its predecessor. Gideon may have been greater than Barak, but there is reason to believe that he elevated the character and purposes of the people less. And with the great names that come after Gideon's, the falling-off is manifest and great. Jephthah was little more than a rough freebooter in whom such faith in the God of his fathers as he had could scarcely struggle into half-formed shape. And the deeds of Samson are those of one on whom a higher mood came rarely and whose faith could never embody itself in steady purpose. Such as they were, his deeds did not touch the popular heart or rouse the energy even of his own tribe. With those who fought for Israel in the days of Eli, the lowest depth is reached. In the weak old man himself, there was still some spark of devotion to Jehovah and his cause; but, from all around him, the last relics of reverence and noble purpose and moral life were gone.1 On the fatal day when the glory departed and the ark of God was taken, the Israel that drew its life from Shiloh fell as completely as Saxon England had fallen when Duke William's meal was spread in the place of slaughter at nightfall of the day of Saint Calixtus."

This suggests what is needed beyond the prowess or ascendancy of personal leaders. It is what is here called vision that insight into life and truth beyond the impulse or passion of the moment, that educated conscience and sincere homage to the ideal, which the primitive people depended on their prophets to impart, but which we get through our heritage of literature. For the true and solid progress of mankind there must be evolved a body of literary instruction; a fund of ideas, tested, authoritative, inspiring, comprehensive, which shall be the property of all, and whose power will work in the common mind when the masterful personage is not present or after he is dead. Such literature traces indeed to personal sources. But to

the power of the person, who with all his greatness may be capricious or inconsistent or one-sided, must be added the steadying and enlightening power of ideas.

NOTE. On the need beyond personal ascendancy, Professor Gardiner remarks, in "Exploratio Evangelica," p. 5: "It is true that in the presence of a mighty spirit and leader of men, his direct commands may be taken as principles of action, and not expressed in terms of the intellect. But in ordinary times, and among thoughtful men, religious doctrine is as necessary to the healthy and normal development of a community as are faith and self-denial."

From Personal to Biblical

Our survey of the times before the age of books has revealed literature as it were in the germ: the song, the mashal, the elegy, the folk tale, all like a runwild oral utterance. It is significant, however, that later, when the specific lines of literature are gathered into a permanent canon-law, prophecy, poetry —all are attributed to personal sources of this period. To Moses is ascribed the beginnings of law, to Samuel the beginnings of prophecy and statesmanship, to David the beginnings of lyric religious poetry. One more great name, that of Solomon, is connected with a literary type, the mashal or wisdom type; and his activity immediately succeeds to this period of the Semina Litterarum. Thus the great centers of literary light and influence are recognized as personal; but their personality is translated into abiding ideas.

THE

CHAPTER II

AWAKING OF THE LITERARY SENSE

[Under the reign of Solomon, 970-933 B.C.]

“HE founding of the Temple, in the fourth year of King Solomon's reign (1 Kings vi, 1) was deemed by the Scripture historians to mark an important date in the nation's life important both for the period that it closed and for the new order then opening. The number of years after the deliverance from Egypt was carefully noted, as if that closing period had its own meaning. The year of the king's reign, and the month, are noted with equal care, as if the event thus dated were an epoch for all time. When a nation can thus begin to number its years, and to set off periods of its history, its existence is beginning to show meaning and promise; it has an organic idea.

The religious import of the building of the Temple is obvious. The central worship of Israel, hitherto held in a tent, was now established in a permanent building. Here then was the religious capital of the nation: a center for the standard service and instruction, and a point of pilgrimage for the various annual feasts. But because religion in ancient times was never dissociated from civic, social, and business affairs, the import of this event for the nation's secular life was equally great. The Temple, in fact, was only one of a whole group of public buildings, which included not only the palace of the king but an extensive series of halls, courts, and porches, for civic administration and judgment. As time went on it became the central place for

banking and business, for schools and tribunals, for archives and libraries. The distinctive national life, in short, was concentrated here.1

I. THE QUICKENED NATIONAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

The founding of the Temple is but one of many signs of the times indicating the birth of national self-consciousness among the scattered tribes, with the pride and patriotism corresponding. At this epochal point, with a feeling of rest, security, and realized hope, the Hebrew people could look back over the twelve generations of almost constant war and unsettledness, and of the gradual fusion of rival and turbulent tribes; until now Israel had become a united nation, with a definite standing among the nations of the earth.

The Larger

During the reign of Solomon the Israelites and their tributary peoples covered the largest expanse of territory the state ever controlled (1 Kings iv, 20, 21). As Civic Scale the reign was mainly one of peace, there was opportunity for domestic upbuilding and prosperity; and this showed itself especially in the king's extensive enterprises in building, which just for the Temple and the royal palace occupied a period of twenty years. To promote this industry, much of which was carried on by forced labor, and to provide for the lavish wants of the court, the kingdom was organized on an elaborate scale; in which the tribal divisions, inherited from more primitive times, were discarded from the machinery of government, and an organization more arbitrary and despotic took their place. To obtain materials for building, alliance was made with the neighboring kingdom of Tyre, in which were situated the celebrated forests of Lebanon. King Solomon also made commercial ventures on his own account; even to the extent of a navy of ships and a port on the Red Sea (1 Kings ix, 26), and a partnership in the Phoenician trade with Tartessus in Spain (1 Kings x, 22).

1 G. A. Smith, "Jerusalem," Vol. I, pp. 352 ff., 365.

With all this energy in government and commerce Solomon had also a disposition for display and luxury. His temper was that of the Oriental despot; sagacious indeed, and not willfully tyrannical, but self-indulgent and extravagant, to a degree that cost his kingdom dear. One thing, however, his reign did, in spite of the despotism it maintained and the hardships it caused it raised the nation, hitherto absorbed in local and clannish affairs, to a broader plane of civilization, where they became aware of a world's interests and business. This brought its new sphere of relations and ideas.

Reflection in

Mind

The whole tone of the history of Solomon's time, as we have this in the books of Kings and Chronicles (1 Kings iv-x; 2 Chron. i-ix), strongly reflects the feeling the Popular of childlike wonder and zest with which the people, to whom such splendors and luxuries as Solomon's were strange and new, contemplated the more spacious order of things. His wisdom, his wealth, his regal display, his magnificent undertakings in architecture and trade, are told in such superlatives as indicate that the teller was not to the manner born. No other personage in Israel's history, in fact, is surrounded by such an atmosphere of legend and fancy as is King Solomon. The Scripture account, indeed, is sober in comparison with the marvels of many Oriental tales, supernatural and magical, that are told of him; but the heightened tone of the Scripture accounts themselves indicates that his memory lives in Israel's kindled imagination as his father David's memory lives in their affections.

All this indicates that under Solomon the people entered for the first time upon a stage of national life and civilization wherein their native genius was adapted to act freely and expand. The nomadic and pastoral life of the wilderness, or a life purely agricultural and rustic such as they had hitherto lived in Canaan, was not their most congenial