It is the peculiarity of the Bible that it is always getting in our way. It has a word on every subject. Is there any thing more detestable than that a man who has his own way seven days a week, whose footsteps are marked by prosperity, whose very breathing is a commercial success, should stand up and tell men who are bleeding at every pore to be quiet and contented, and not create disturbance in the body politic? If Jeroboam had come with a petition conceived in another tone it ought to have been rejected. It would have been irrational, violent and contemptuous; but the reasonableness of the request will insure its victory in the long run. How easy it is to think of Rehoboam as the foolish son of a wise father! But are we not unjust to the son in so regarding him? Was Solomon the wise man he is often made out to be? The answer would be: “Yes--No.” There was no greater fool than Solomon; and he attained his supremacy in folly because there was no man so wise. “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” “How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” If he had not been son of the morning some shallow pit might have held him; but, being son of the morning and detaching himself from the gravitation of God, the pit into which he falls is bottomless. Pliny says no man can be always wise. That is true philosophically and experimentally; for all men have vulnerable heels, or are exposed to temptations to lightness of mind, amounting in some instances almost to frivolity. They are also the subjects of a most singular rebound, which makes them appear the more frivolous because when we last saw them they were absorbed in the solemnity of prayer. Solomon was not wise in this matter of government. The history shows that the people were appealing, not against Rehoboam, who had yet had no opportunity of proving his quality as a king, but against his father. “Thy father made our yoke grievous.” We are prone to copy the defects of our ancestors and our idols rather than their excellences. Folly has often more charms for us than wisdom. When Diogenes discoursed of philosophy his auditors turned away from him, but when he began to play frivolous music or to sing frivolous songs the crowds thronged about him, and he said: “Ye gods! How much more popular is folly than wisdom!” Even there he spoke as a philosopher. Rehoboam made a cautious reply, and therein he began well. He said to the petitioners: “Come again unto me after three days.” This looked hopeful. King Rehoboam utilized the interval by taking counsel with “the old men who had stood before Solomon, his father, while he yet lived, saying: ‘What counsel give ye me to return answer to this people?’ And they spake unto him, saying: ‘If thou be kind to this people and please them, and speak good words to them, they will be thy servants for ever.’”