How true it is that each should work out with fear and trembling his salvation! Solomon in all his glory once asked a Grecian sage: "Am I not the happiest of men? " but the other, shaking his head, replied: "Wait till I have seen the end." And oh, what a sad end was that! Solomon, type of Christ, model of faith and hope and love and wisdom, God's favorite among kings and men, so rich in merit that one would have expected him to pass bodily like Enoch or Elias from earth to heaven, yet Solomon fell and ended his days in lust and multiple idolatry. As frail as the flowers the Saviour compared him to, he was cut down suddenly and cast into the oven. What a contrast between that hoary-headed apostate and the radiant form of the young king in the Temple on the day of dedication! What a lesson for all of us, priest and people alike! When Hazael offered Eliseus presents the prophet wept, foreseeing the atrocities Hazael was soon to perpetrate. Many a confessor would weep, notwithstanding his penitent's evident sincerity, were he vouchsafed a look into that penitent's future. As Moses placed his hand in his bosom and drew it out covered with leprosy, so many a hand that beats its breast for sorrow comes away covered with sin. Watch ye, therefore, and pray — pray for strength against temptation, and for the grace of perseverance.
Brethren, I would not have you understand that our perseverance so depends on God as to free us from all responsibility. No, we have a part, a duty — which, briefly stated, is: to avoid the occasions of
