The splendour of his riches filled her with amazement. They far surpassed all she had ever heard. In general, people raise their expectations too high from what they hear, but here it seems they had not been raised high enough. Thy wisdom and prosperity," says the Queen to Solomon, "exceedeth the fame which I heard." She says also," Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he the king, to do judgment and justice."

David says in his psalm for Solomon, "He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment." The Queen must have returned to her own country a wiser woman than she left it. She had increased her knowledge of God and No doubt she had gained hints for governing with equity and judgment. Solomon may have taught her" how to deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper." Psalm xxxii.

man.

12.

"The " Queen of the South," says our

blessed Lord," shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, a greater than Solomon is here."

Yes, the Queen of Sheba came a very long way to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but how many there are will not walk a mile, or even a few yards to hear the wisdom of Jesus.

THE WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH.

WHEN Elijah the prophet had to make his escape from the approach of a famine, and from the persecutions of his enemy Ahab, God commanded him to go and hide himself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. The River Jordan is described by travellers of the present day, as having its banks adorned with acacia and tamarind trees, and many shrubs and flowers, and its width is said to be twenty yards.

In this safe and quiet retreat, God still watched over Elijah, for he sent the ravens to feed him. They brought him bread and

flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook.

But at length for want of rain, the brook became quite dry, so that Elijah had nothing to quench his thirst. Still this good man was not forsaken by the Lord, for he never forsakes those who put their trust in him. He therefore desired Elijah to go to Zarephath, telling him that he had put it into the heart of a poor widow there to support him. Elijah immediately obeyed the command of the Lord by setting out for Zarephath. And when Elijah appeared at the gate of the city, hungry and weary, he beheld a poor widow woman come out of her house overwhelmed with grief. She was come out to prepare her last meal, which she was going to share with her child. She may have been practising the strictest economy lest her little provision should not last out the famine. Her cares and anxieties must have been many. She had no husband to help her in this virtuous struggle, and she was just beginning to sink under it when Elijah

appeared. His first words to the poor widow of Zarephath were, " Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink." The poor woman immediately went to fetch it, and Elijah called to her again, "Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hands." And the widow said to Elijah, "As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise, and behold I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die."

And Elijah answered, "Fear not, but go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and thy son. For thus saith the Lord, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth."

The poor widow saw in Elijah a fellowsufferer with herself. She thought of his having travelled over a barren country in