and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea; and I will convey them by sea in floats." This at first sight seems a little difficult. He might have done so, I think, to a very great extent by the Jordan. We know that in eastern countries nothing is more common still, and indeed it occurs in western countries, as I have seen in the Highlands, than for floats of tim ber to be fastened together by ropes, the floats laid upon the river, and as soon as a flood comes, the whole is conveyed down safely to the harbour, or the place where the timbers are to be used. Now if they had been brought down from Lebanon to the Jordan, he might have waited for a flood; but if by sea, they must have been conveyed by boats pulling the floats, or watching the tides, and bringing them down the coast until they came opposite Jerusalem. "So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty thousand measures of pure oil; thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year:" payment then being in kind. You are aware that money is a modern improvement upon ancient circulating media. In ancient times they gave corn for timber, or timber for the more frequent thing in the days of Job and of the Patriarchs was to give so many head of cattle. And hence the origin of our word "money." The Latin for money is pecunia, which is derived from pecus, cattle. It is so called, because cattle was the original money or medium of circulation among the

corn;

primitive Patriarchs. It came down in later times to something better; and at last it reached the highest civilization in the present circulating medium of gold and silver. "And King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon," to take their share in hewing and sawing the timber. You will notice here very admirable conduct on the part of Solomon. When he raised this levy, he did not overtask the men he employed, as is too much the tendency, some perhaps would say the necessity of modern times; but he gave them so many months to stop at Lebanon hewing wood, and so many to come home; "a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home;" that is, for one day's work they got two days' rest. Well, perhaps that was excessive in one direction; but it indicates at all events that Solomon was not an advocate for what is called the long hour system; but that he thought that while they did a fair day's work and had a fair day's pay, the people employed by him should not be made beasts of burden, overtasked, and sent to an early grave; but that they should have means of living comfortably as well as living industriously in his service.

And then we read that "they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house." You recollect what was the law of the building of that temple; there was not to be heard the sound of the hammer in erecting it. Hence everything was fitted for its place on the mountains of Lebanon, and then brought down to the temple and laid accordingly. Some of the stones used in the

foundation of that temple were of gigantic size; some of them remain to this day. There is one stone discovered eighteen feet in length, supposed to be one of the foundation stones, and literally worn by the ceaseless kissing of grey-haired Rabbis, who while they do so repeat the beautiful words of David in the 102nd Psalm, "Her very dust and stones are dear to us. And thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion; and the set time of her favour shall come." "It will come; it will be a temple, far more magnificent, as I shall afterwards tell you, than that which Solomon built.

"The strangers that aided in the building of the Temple, were an emblem of the Gentiles concerned in building the spiritual temple; and whereas the num, ber of strangers that wrought for the building was far greater than that of the Israelites, it may denote the greater number of Gentiles in the Gospel Church state."-GILL.

BUILDING MATERIALS.

CHAPTER VI.

THIS magnificent structure was begun 480 years after the Exodus from Egypt. All that was pure and permanent and precious in earthly materials, was employed in the sacred edifice. It stood on Mount Moriah. The architectural details do not interest us, unless, perhaps, they shew what must be the glory and excellence of Him whom all fore-shadowed. He is the

true temple. In Him dwelleth the everlasting Shechinah.

Dr. Lightfoot thinks the two Cherubim typify the two Testaments.

FURNITURE.

CHAPTER VII.

SOLOMON builds a palace for himself after he had arranged a temple for his God. We have here also details of articles of furniture belonging to the sacred Fane; a brazen sea resting on twelve oxen of brass, holding water for keeping all clean; golden candlesticks; the altar of incense; the golden hinges of the gates.

Yet all pales before the glory of Him who is Altar, Priest, and Sacrifice, Light and Fire, and Bread and Beauty, and all, and in all.

The brazen sea was typical of the Fountain for sin and uncleanness.

"God doth not need

Either man's work or His own gifts; who best

Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state

Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest,

They also serve who only stand and wait."

SOLOMON'S LITANY.

CHAPTER VIII.

GOD A SPIRIT AND HIS TEMPLE ALL SPACE. THE TEMPLE AND

CHRISTIAN PLACES OF WORSHIP. THE GLORY.

DARKNESS. PRAYING EASTWARD.

LIGHT AND

LAYMEN PRAYING.

CON

TENTS OF SOLOMON'S PRAYER.

I Do not know a more sublime, spiritual, and comprehensive litany in any language than that which was offered at the dedication of the temple of Solomon. The two chapters immediately preceding consist of details of building, and architecture; both having a place, but not the place. The contrast to these in magnificence, and beauty, and instruction, which belongs to this splendid chapter is impressive. It contains a prayer needed by, and suited for all people.

Solomon, while recognizing the necessity of a public temple for the public worship of God, yet rises far above it in his thoughts of what is suitable to God. He owns, even while he dedicates the material fane, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain God, much less the place that he had built. He thereby shews that whilst an outward place of worship, and at that day of sacrifice, was most expedient and dutiful; the Israelites were not to suppose that God was so present there, and so shut up there that he could not hear their prayers in the uttermost ends of the earth, or that he could not answer those prayers, and do for them what, in their exigency and trouble, they required at his hands. It is right to notice that this