1. What did David ask of his people? 2. What did they bring him? 3. What were all these things for? 4. Who was to build the Temple? 5. Why was not David himself allowed to build it? 6. Yet what did he get together for it? 7. Why was he happy? 8. What did he ask God? 9. What great rejoicing was there? 10. Why was everything happy now with the nation? SECOND READING. "Give me now wisdom and knowledge."--_2 Chron. 1:10._ WHEN King David died, Solomon was still almost a boy. But God spake to him in a dream by night, and said, "Ask what I shall give thee." Then Solomon said he was but young, and knew not how to rule over this great people that God had given him; and therefore he prayed, above all, that God would give him a wise and understanding heart. And God was pleased with Solomon's choice, and said that because he had cared for wisdom most, and had not asked for riches, or long life, or to put down his enemies, that therefore, besides wisdom, God would give him all the rest--riches, and honor, and length of life--and he should be wiser, and greater, and richer, than any king ever was before him, or should be after him. All this was because he had cared so much to have a wise and understanding heart to know good and evil. That was first with him, and so God gave him all the rest. So it will be with all those who seek first of all to be good. God does not make us wise all at once like Solomon, but if we care about it, He will help us to get wise by little and little if we really try, and then He will bless all we do. QUESTIONS. 1. Who was Solomon? 2. Whose son was he? 3. What was he king of? 4. How old was he when he began to be king? 5. What did God say to him at night? 6. What did Solomon wish for most? 7. What did God give him besides? 8. Why did God give him all these things when he did not ask for them? 9. What should we care about most? 10. What will God do for us if we care most about goodness? 11. How will He help us to get wise? 12. But what must we do ourselves? [Illustration: THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.--1 Kings 3:26, 27.] THIRD READING. "The wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.--_1 Kings 3:28._ HERE is a story to show how wise and clever King Solomon was. One day when he was sitting on his throne two women came to him: one with a live baby, the other with a dead one, both boys, and just of the same age. They said they had been living alone together in the same house, each with her little baby, till one night one of the women rolled over her child in her sleep and smothered it, so that she found it was dead.