The Lesson Compend for 1877 Author:Jesse Lyman Hurlbut Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LESSON COMPEND. First STUDIES IN OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. LESSON I.—The Kingdom Divided. 1 Kings xii, 12-20. 12. As the king had appointed—I hear ... more »no other word of his that argued wisdom : uot to give sudden resolutions, in cases of importance, was a point that well might beseem the son of Solomon. I wonder that he, who had so much wit as to call for leisure in his answer, should show so little wit in the improving of that leisure, in the return of that answer.—Ha. = A great political crisis had arrived. The peril was imminent. The nation was on the verge of rebellion; nor could a rebellion be averted but by the most skillful and, indeed, delicate management. The king stood above a magazine of combustibles. An angry word or look, and the spark falls which fires them, and shakes his kingdom to its foundations—shatters it ia pieces; the ship hangs on a mountain wave, close by the thundering reef—a wrong turn of the helm and she goes crashing on the rocks, to be scattered in fragments on the deep. A. difficult post Rehoboam's; and to no man was the saying ever less appropriate than to him, the right man in the right place!—Gt. 13. The old men's counsel—The old men advise concession—that the king should speak the people fair; yield to their present humor; bend to the wave which would in that case, foaming and formidable as it looked, pass harmless over him. They assure him that a little sacrifice of his pride and dignity now would bind the nation hereafter, and forever, to his service. There was sound sense in this. How inconsistent the popular humor, and bow easily a skillful hand may manage, calm, and turn even a fierce and furious multitude, is well known.—Gt. 14. The counsel of the young men—The young heads are consulted; this very change argues weakness: some ...« less