The drama centers around three principal characters--Solomon, the Shunammite maiden, and her shepherd lover. The book relates how the maiden, surprised by the king and his train, was brought to the palace in Jerusalem, where the king hoped to win her affections and to induce her to exchange her rustic home for the enjoyment and honor the court life affords. She has, however, already pledged her heart to a young shepherd; and the admiration and blandishments which the king lavishes upon her are powerless to make her forget him. In the end she is permitted to return to her mountain home, where at the close of the poem the lovers appear hand in hand and express, in warm, glowing words, the superiority of genuine spontaneous {253} affection. The real aim of the book, therefore, seems to be to glorify true love, and more specifically, true betrothed love, which remains steadfast even in the most dangerous and most seductive situations. In this age, when the responsibility of the individual Christian and of the Christian Church toward the practical, social, religious, and moral problems and evils is recognized more than at any other previous time, the prophetic literature is worthy of the most careful study on the part of all Christians who recognize and who are willing to meet their obligations to their day and generation. The prophets of old met in the strength of God, and at the divine impulse, the problems and evils of their own age. They had to face the problems of materialism and commercialism; the evils resulting from the accumulation of wealth, power, and resources in the hands of a few; very serious economic problems; cruelty, oppression, arrogance on the part of the rich proprietors; corruption in government and in the administration of justice; they had to grapple with a cold, heartless formalism that threatened to destroy pure, spiritual religion. Against these evils and wrongs the prophets of old raised their hands and voices. "When the old tribal customs and bonds were weakened by the growth of cities and the cultivation of commerce they saw that {254} society must be set upon a moral basis or suffer destruction. When the nation itself was about to be broken to pieces they saw in this a call for a deeper spiritual life.... They were interested in politics, but not as a profession in which to show their skill, or out of which they might gain wealth or glory. Politics for them meant simply the life of the nation in its relation to God and to the great outside world. They were social reformers. To the earlier prophets man was regarded always as a member of society rather than as an independent individual.... In opposition to a showy ritual, they set up their demands for justice between man and man."[22] Surely, it is a part of the Christian's duty to do his share toward a Christian solution of the social and religious problems of our day. We can hardly claim to have reached the full