Go stand where I have stood
And see the strong man bow
With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood
And cold and livid brow;

Go catch his wandering glance, and see
There mirrored his soul's misery.

Go hear what I have heard

The sobs of sad despair

As memory's feeling fount hath stirred, And its revealings there

Have told him what he might have been Had he the drunkard's fate foreseen.

Go to my mother's side

And her crushed spirit cheer; Thine own deep anguish hide,

Wipe from her cheek the tear;

Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow,
The gray that streaks her dark hair now,
Her toil-worn frame, her trembling limb,
And trace the ruin back to him
Whose plighted faith in early youth
Promised eternal love and truth,
But who, forsworn, hath yielded up
That promise to the deadly cup

And led her down from love and light,
From all that made her pathway bright,
And chained her there, 'mid want and strife,
That lowly thing a drunkard's wife,
And stamped on childhood's brow so mild.
That withering blight a drunkard's child.

flowers.

Write, sister, write!

Write, brother, write!

Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old:

My never-failing friends are they,

spoken;

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

IRAM, king of Tyre, when he had heard that Solomon succeeded to his father's kingdom, was very glad of it, for he was a friend of David's. So he sent ambassadors to him and saluted him, and congratulated him on the present happy state of his affairs. Upon which Solomon sent him an epistle, the contents of which here follow:

SOLOMON TO KING HIRAM.

"Know thou that my father would have built a temple to God, but was hindered by wars and continual expeditions, for he did not leave off to overthrow his enemies till he made them all subject to tribute. But I give thanks to God for the peace I at present enjoy, and on that account I am at leisure and design to build a house to God, for God foretold to my father that such a house should be built by me; wherefore I desire thee to send some of thy subjects with mine to Mount Lebanon to cut down timber; for the Sidonians are more skilful than our people in cutting of wood. As for wages to the hewers of wood, I will pay whatsoever price thou shalt determine."

When Hiram had read this epistle, he was pleased with it, and wrote back this answer to Solomon :

HIRAM TO KING SOLOMON. "It is fit to bless God that he hath committed thy father's government to thee, who art a wise man and endowed with all virtues. As for myself, I rejoice at the condition thou art in, and will be subservient to thee in all that thou sendest to me about; for when by my subjects I have cut down many and large trees of cedar and cypress wood, I will send them to sea, and will order my subjects to make floats of them, and to sail to what place soever of thy country thou shalt desire, and leave them there, after which thy subjects may carry them to Jerusalem; but do thou take care to procure us corn for this timber, which we stand in need of, because we inhabit in an island."

The copies of these epistles remain at this day, and are preserved not only in our books, but among the Tyrians also; insomuch that if any one would know the certainty about them, he may desire of the keepers of the public records of Tyre to show him them, and he will find what is there set down to agree with what we have said. I have said so much out of a desire that my readers may know that we speak nothing but the truth, and do not compose a history out of some plausible relations which deceive men and please them at the same time, nor attempt to avoid examination, nor desire men to believe us immediately; nor are we at liberty to depart from speaking truth, which is the proper

commendation of a historian, and yet to be blameless. But we insist upon no admission of what we say unless we be able to manifest its truth by demonstration and the strongest vouchers.

Now, King Solomon, as soon as this epistle of the king of Tyre was brought him, commended the readiness and good-will he declared therein, and repaid him in what he desired, and sent him yearly twenty thousand cori of wheat and as many baths* of oil. Now, the bath is able to contain seventy-two sextaries. He also sent him the same measure of wine. So the friendship between Hiram and Solomon hereby increased more and more, and they swore to continue it for ever. And the king appointed a tribute to be laid on all the people of thirty thousand laborers, whose work he rendered easy to them by prudently dividing it among them, for he made ten thousand cut timber in Mount Lebanon for one month, and then to come home, and to rest two months, until the time when the other twenty thousand had finished their task at the appointed time; and so afterward it came to pass that the first ten thousand returned to their work every fourth month. And it was Adoram who was over this tribThere were also of the strangers who were left by David, who were to carry the stones and other materials, seventy thousand; and of those that cut the stones, eighty thousand. Of these, three thousand and three hundred were rulers over the rest. He also enjoined them to cut out large stones for the foundations of the temple, and that they should fit them and unite them together in the mountain, and so bring them to the city. * Bath, a Hebrew measure of seven and a half gallons.

ute.

This was done, not only by our own country. workmen, but by those workmen whom Hiram sent also.

OF THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.

Solomon began to build the temple in the fourth year of his reign, on the second month, which the Macedonians call Artemisius, and the Jews Jur, five hundred and ninety-two years after the exodus out of Egypt, but one thousand and twenty years from Abraham's coming out of Mesopotamia into Canaan, and after the Deluge one thousand four hundred and forty years; and from Adam, the first man who was created, until Solomon built the temple, there had passed in all three thousand one hundred and two years. Now, that year on which the temple began to be built was already the eleventh year of the reign of Hiram, but from the building of Tyre to the building of the temple there had passed two hundred and forty years.

Now, therefore, the king laid the foundations of the temple very deep in the ground, and the materials were strong stones and such as would resist the force of time: these were to unite themselves with the earth and become a basis and a sure foundation for that superstructure which was to be erected over it. They were to be so strong in order to sustain with ease those vast superstructures and precious ornaments, whose own weight was to be not less than the weight of those other high and heavy buildings which the king designed to be very ornamental and magnificent. They erected its entire body, quite up to the roof, of white stone: its height was sixty cubits, and its length was the same, and its breadth twenty. There was another building erected over it, equal