We left Jerusalem by the gate of St. Stephen, passing between the chapel of the Virgin Mary and the garden of Gethsemane. We crossed Mount Olivet a little to the south of the church of the Ascension, where there is a slight depression in the mount; the part south of this is called the Mount of Corruption. On it Solomon built places for his heathen wives, to practise the heathen rites. They point out a place where they say he had a large establishment for these "_strange women_." The Mount of Corruption! very well named, when put to such uses; a very corrupt business it was--bad enough at any place, but still worse at the holy city, and by the ruler of the chosen people! Solomon was, no doubt, a very wise man in some things, but he did not show it in his relation to females. In that respect he behaved very foolishly. It is the dictate of wisdom for a man to have one wife, it was thus intended by his Maker; and he will be the happier and even the better man, all other things being equal, for being thus connected. If he uses a little wisdom in making his choice, and a little more in treating and taking care of his wife, as every good man ought to do, he will find, nine times out of ten, that his wife will be a great comfort and help to him, and do him good all the days of his life. But what is to be expected of the man who is so very foolish as to gather them about him by the score, yea, the hundred? And then, what a selection from all the idolatrous nations within his reach! I doubt not they were a _bad set, a very bad set of women_; but what right had he to expect a better from the quarter whence he obtained them? Had he gone to some good old pious father of his own people, and married his well-raised, virtuous, and pious daughter, and confined himself to one wife as a wise man ought to do, and a good man would do, he might have been happy in the married life. But behaving as he did, there is no wonder that he was unhappy. It is not at all courteous and gallant in him, in these circumstances, to show his spite in making hard speeches about the ladies, as if there was no fault on his own side.