"The other nations all," so Saul rejoined, "Followed the bent of nature, had their will, What they chose did, and were idolatrous, God gave them up to their apostasy; Us God withstood, His Hebrews He forbade; With the same bent as others, as headstrong, We Hebrews strangely went a different way, And upward moved against a downward bent. A fiery flaming sword turned every way Forever met us on the errant track, And forced us right though still found facing wrong. God's prophets did not fail, age after age-- Until for that we needed them no more-- To warn us, chide us, threaten, plead, conjure, Against our passion for idolatry. Yet, as defying all that God could do, Such was the force of that infatuate love Fast-rooted in the sottish Hebrew heart For idol-worship, that King Solomon, The greatest, wisest, wealthiest of our kings, Mightiest, most famous, most magnificent, The glory and the crown of Israel, The wonder and the proverb of the East-- This king, at point of culmination highest To the far-shining splendor of our race, The son of David, Solomon, turned back From God who gave him his pre-eminence, From God, the Living God, turned back, and sold His heart, his spacious, all-experienced heart, To gods that were no gods. "Against a will, A set of nature, a prime pravity Stubborn like this, and tenfold impulse given Through such example in our first of kings, That, conflagration of infection round, _We_ should escape and not idolatrous be, We only of all nations on the earth, This, without miracle, were miracle, A miracle of chance, confounding chance, Monstrous, incredible, impossible! Nay, miracles on miracles were for us wrought, The manifest finger of God unquestionable, Yet to ourselves ourselves, to all men we, Wisely looked on, are chiefest miracle, Witness from age to age that God is God."