(M128) The apostasy of Solomon is the most mournful fall recorded in history, thereby showing that no intellectual power can rescue a man from the indulgence of his passions and the sins of pride and vainglory. How immeasurably superior to him in self-control was Marcus Aurelius, who had the whole world at his feet! It was women who had estranged him from allegiance to God—the princesses of idolatrous nations. Although no mention is made of his repentance, the heart of the world will not accept his final impenitence; and we infer from the book of Ecclesiastes, written when all his delusions were dispelled—that sad and bitter and cynical composition,—that he was at least finally persuaded that the fear of the Lord constitutes the beginning and the end of all wisdom in this probationary state. And we can not but feel that he who urged this wisdom upon the young with so much reason and eloquence at last was made to feel its power upon his own soul. (M129) The government of Solomon, nevertheless had proved arbitrary, and his public works oppressive. The monarch whom he most resembled, in his taste for magnificence, in the splendor of his reign, and in the vexations and humiliations of his latter days, was Louis XIV. of France, who sowed the seeds of future revolutions. So Solomon prepared the way for rebellion, by his grievous exactions. Under his son Rehoboam, a vain and frivolous, and obstinate young man, who ascended the throne B.C. 975, the revolt took place. He would not listen to his father’s councillors, and increased rather than mitigated the burdens of the people. And this revolt was successful: ten tribes joined the standard of Jeroboam, with 800,000 fighting men. Judah remained faithful to Rehoboam, and the tribe of Benjamin subsequently joined it, and from its geographical situation, it remained nearly as powerful as the other tribes, having 500,000 fighting men. But the area of territory was only quarter as large. (M130) The Jewish nation is now divided. The descendants of David reign at Jerusalem; the usurper and rebel Jeroboam reigns over the ten tribes, at Shechem. For the sake of clearness of representation we will first present the fortunes of the legitimate kings who reigned over the tribe of Judah.