I. OPHIR, REPRESENTING THE DESIRE. Where Ophir was we do not know with certainty; probably in Arabia or India. It was a district noted for wealth, for Solomon's fleet used to go to Ophir every third year to bring back gold, ivory, and apes. And Jehoshaphat deems his happiness incomplete; he must have the blessings of Ophir added. He has a throne, but he must have gold. He has a crown of precious jewels, won by David from the King of Ammon, but he must have gold; and he tries to get it. And was there any great sin or harm in that? If there was, then alas for us! for there are very few of us who would not like to fasten our boat to one of Jehoshaphat's ships, and follow in his wake to a prize so rich and tempting. We should be quite ready to grant Jehoshaphat "liberty to tow" if he would only throw out his hawser to us. And is this desire for gain wrong? Is it inconsistent with a Christian profession? or injurious to a Christian life? One thing is sure, it is a universal and instinctive desire. Go where you will, you find men hurrying and striving; trapping the furs of the North, gathering the fruits of the South; with careful, plodding industry seeking the treasures of the mine, or the soil, or the sea. Scripture does not condemn the business. It commends it. It approves of doing with our might whatever our hands may find to do. It says the man who is "diligent in business shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." It rebukes sloth as well as too much sleep, as it says: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." And what is it keeps these myriad wheels revolving? that makes the world so busy, saving men from an indolence that would be fatal to all the virtues? It is this same desire for gain, the wish to better one's circumstances, Go then to Ophir if you will, and if you can. Be diligent. Leave no stone unturned that lies in your path. Increase your substance; but remember to minister to Christ of that substance.

II. TARSHISH, AND THE DESIGN. Tashish was a busy emporium. Tarshish is still a busy place, and shipbuilders are many. Thought is busy drawing out her plans, putting plank to plank. And when our preparation is complete, we launch our little craft, sending it afloat among that fleet of ventures which every day goes steering out into the deep. And as we launch our ventures, what hope, what exhilaration, what self-congratulation, as we set the ribbons streaming, and flags fluttering, and wine dashing on the prow! How early in life we begin our shipbuilding! Even in boyhood our hearts and hopes are away in the future. We are building our phantom ships with shadowy sails; and, standing on our shadowy deck, how near the shores of Ophir are! We can almost touch them! Others, many others, have failed, but success to us is certain; at least it seems so to us, for boyhood's vision is chromatic, it likes to conjure up images. Now most of us have lived some time in Tarshish; and somewhere on the great deep of commercial life our ships are afloat to-day. Some are ordinary merchantmen, whose sails catch the trade winds, and whose voyages are somewhat slow. Some are a more colossal craft, a kind of steamer; your venture is among the manufactures, with its larger capital and its quicker returns. And some have neither of these; so they launch their little row-beat, and, trusting to the skill and strength of their two hands, they hope for a cargo, though it be but a small one And so Tarshish is left behind: Ezion-geber comes in sight.

II. EZION-GEBER, AND THE DISAPPOINTMENT. This was a city on the shore of the Red Sea, used by Solomon as a naval station, and as his seaside place of residence. Now in our trading we like to give Ezion-geber a wide berth. We must pass by it, for there is no way of reaching Ophir but by Ezion-geber. There is no success, but we must venture something to gain it; there is no prize, but lies behind some hazard. And how many of our ships have gone aground, and gone to pieces! Some have returned, laden with a heavy, precious freight; but how many are now overdue, how many lost! More ships reach Ezion-geber than reach Ophir. What mean these broken ships?

1. Some are broken because they were built of light, flimsy material. The strongest lasts the longest. A bubble is easily blown; it as easily bursts. And some men are always floating bubbles. The gains of ordinary, legitimate trade are safe, but slow; too slow for those who are making haste to be rich. So they go into speculation. Here is a scheme that looks fair enough: it is to do wonders. The prospectus is a perfect kaleidoscope; look into it and you see gold, silver, pearls, villas, carriages, and all kinds of beautiful things! And the bait takes. Without stopping to make inquiries as to the concern, — whether there is anything substantial to back it, whether or not the names are painted figure-heads, — they put their all in the venture. Soon their ship is broken, and they wring their hands in bitter disappointment. But it was their own fault. Their ship had no framework of solid timber. It was a paste-board ship, with a thick coating of paint. Such people deserve to have broken ships. They did not call in a surveyor, they trusted to a chance.

2. Again, some ships are broken because built of unsound timber. How many have gone down to an unmarked ocean-grave because of rotten planks! And many a vessel is built of worthless timber: men put into them planks worm-eaten, sin-eaten. Can you expect these to succeed? Can you bring home health and happiness in schemes that will not stand the light of the Word, or the survey of conscience? Put sin into anything, and you put weakness in it. Put sin into it, and you nail a curse to it. There is no real gain from injustice or fraud.

3. But our ships are often broken because God breaks them. We put no green wood into our ships; nothing but careful, long-seasoned thought. We called in prudence and skill to draw out the plans, and to superintend the building. We kept a good "look-out" at the prow; we watched the winds and currents, and took frequent soundings. Yet we failed; our plans miscarried; our well-equipped vessel ran aground at Ezion-geber. Why is this? why does God give us now success, and then failure? why these frequent and sometimes bitter disappointments?Perhaps it may be to teach us wisdom in our partnerships.

1. Even in business it is not best to be yoked together with unbelievers. A twin-ship may ride the sea more steadily, and perhaps carry heavier cargoes; but if the prows do not point the same way, if you have two sets of charts, and two compasses that do not agree, your craft may be where the Alexandrian corn-ship was — in the place where two seas meet, the fore part fast on the rocks, and the hinder part broken by the violence of the waves.

2. Again, they are broken in order to teach us humility. If every plan of ours succeeded, we should be in danger; we should become vain, perhaps boastful; like Nebuchadnezzar, chanting praises to ourselves, how our own hand has gotten this wealth. And so He disappoints us.

3. Or God breaks them because He sees we have enough already. Possibly larger wealth might only bring a barrenness of soul: for it is the tendency of increasing wealth to damp and dwarf the spiritual life. Its increasing cares push out holy thoughts; mind and heart are more and more given to "earthly things," until the whole life becomes metallic, and religion is simply a creed, or a caricature. In going over the Alps you leave first the secluded valley. Here everything is rich; nature is at her best, covering the fields with corn, and the hillsides with the vines. You ascend and the vines leave you. It is the walnut or the oak that shades your path, and tinkling bells of goats and kine fall musically upon your ear. Higher, and vegetation gets more scant; and instead of the broad leaves of the valley you have the needle-like leaves of the pine and fix. Still higher, and you touch the snows. All is bare and treeless. No fruit, no corn can ripen, for winter claims all the seasons here. And how much is that like many lives! Down in the humbler, lowlier days there was a wealth of heart, though there was poverty of purse. The life was clothed with a beautiful foliage. Sympathies were generous and swift. Hands, feet, and lips steered a glad though a lowly service. But fortune favoured them, wealth poured in upon them. Personal service became more rare, they learned to pay for substitutes, and to serve God by proxy, Rising financially and socially, they declined spiritually. And what are they to-day? Icy Alpine peaks, frowning out of their perpetual cloud, driving the song-birds away, and making the venturesome traveller who calls for a subscription shiver with frost.

4. Or God breaks our ships that we may lean more upon Himself. Our losses after all often prove our truest, richest gains. Our night of failure and disappointment brings the calmer morning, and as we sit down at the Master's feet, gazing in wonder and love upon Him, and taking from His hands the Divine bread, our "hard toiling" and empty nets are forgotten! Let the Lord give us as many failures as He will, so long as He gives us Himself. On the bare, bleak rocks of Ezion-geber if He be with us, we shall say: "Master, it is good to be here. It is better here with Thee than at Ophir without Thee." Nay, let the Lord break all our plans, dash upon the rocks all our prospects, all our earthly hopes; what matter it, if only we get "safe to land!" "Fear not," sang the Roman sailor to his boat, "thou carriest Caesar and his fortunes." So let the storm beat, rocks threaten as they may, we still can sing: "Bear up, O heart! Thou carriest, not Caesar, but Caesar's King — the Christ, the perfect Man, the Living God."

(H. Burton, M. A.)

I. WHERE ONE GOOD MAN MAY SUCCEED ANOTHER MAY FALL. Solomon had done the very thing that Jehoshaphat proposed. What Solomon did prosperously Jehoshaphat vainly attempted. Why was this? The thing itself was right. God would not have one nation isolated from another. He would have unbrotherliness broken down, and men learn in the barter of commerce that "none of us liveth to himself." Countries differ in their productions, and each can furnish something to the wardrobe, table, or adornment of the rest. The merchant has no philanthropy, perhaps, moving him to his commercial ventures, but every ship in the foreign market and bearing its honest freightage to our own is a herald of Him who came to proclaim "goodwill to men." Industry is provoked, and that is good; the poor ore helped into comfort, the international sentiment is strengthened, the war demon is fettered, and the separated parts of the earth are united by mutual dependence and blessing. No one land is made for itself alone.

II. JEHOSHAPHAT'S SHIPS WERE BROKEN TO SEPARATE HIM FROM A SINFUL PARTNERSHIP. Thus was ended his alliance with an idolator. Very stringent was God's word against such a union. And now, the work broken, God's rod expounded the word. And in the clearer, wider times of Christianity, can we be careless about our partnerships? If wrong for a king to join in shipbuilding and a commercial venture with a worshipper of idols, can it be right in us, of choice, to yoke with the wicked in the pursuits of business? Is it not written by Paul, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Difficulties meet us here, as where, indeed, do they not in the Divine life? Narrow is the way now as ever. A workman may have comrades as spiritually distant from him — more spiritually distant than the sundered roles. What is that Christian man to do? To cut himself adrift from his occupation there because of those ungodly men around him? What is the Christian merchant to do who has an unchristian partner in his firm? Must that partnership be dissolved? How easily can questions accumulate upon us! And what shall we say? We can but lay down principles to be applied to the individual case by Bible-enlightened conscience. Any business, any business transaction which cannot be undertaken as beneath God's eye should not be undertaken by God's children. For a Christian man to choose association, partnership with immoral men is presumption. He may do good, but how much more likely to receive harm? He is but one, and his judgment may be overruled by the verdict of others. Is God only for the Sabbath and sanctuary, the religious meeting, and the dying hour? He is to be acknowledged in all our ways. Business is to be transacted in his fear. We may be united to practices as well as individuals, and these, though familiar by habit, may be a damage to the soul. Good political economy may be very bad Christianity. Any infraction of the royal law is that, whoever may be guilty of it.

III. JEHOSHAPHAT'S SHIPS WERE BROKEN TO GOOD PURPOSE. The ships were built at Ezion-geber, and there were they wrecked. A great loss this; all the outlay and the golden hopes scattered in broken planks and beams and drift-wood upon the seashore. But God was in this thing. "The Lord hath broken thy works," said the prophet to the king. The storm had done, as the Lord would have it, double duty — had broken the merchantmen and Jehoshaphat's alliance with his heathen neighbour. The loss might have been greater. Troubles are mercies if they have with us similar result. Better that a man's possessions go down like a house of cards than that he go down into spiritual destruction. Better than a man s projects be broken up like those ancient Jewish ships, than that he made shipwreck of faith and a pure conscience. Oh, many a man has wrung his hands amid the shattered prosperity of life, and he has cried, "I am ruined," while the clear-eyed angels have been celebrating his deliverance from the maelstrom that sucks down into hell. Welcome such losses! Blessed be such calamities! Let them be sudden and violent! Shall the passenger sleeping in his cabin complain because the captain has roughly aroused him to the fact that the vessel is in the swift, fierce hands of there demon rushing from stem to stern? Better so aroused than to sleep till escape is impossible. That can be no real calamity which wakes a man to the peril of his soul, and flings him on a huge wave up upon the Rock of Ages. A ship was settling down into the sea. Oh, the horror in every eye! "Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave!" But lo, a vessel of rescue drew near, and through speaking-trumpet the captain cried, as boats were launched for their succour, "Come all on board with me!" To us comes in sight a shining barque: angels man it, and: evening breezes wafting and lo! the Captain cries, "My name is Jesus, My ship salvation, My haven heaven. Come all on board with Me!" How wise to heed that voice!

(G. T. Coster.)

I. WE VIEW OUR WRECKED HOPES IN THE LIGHT OF REBUKE. Our misfortune may be a rebuke for some immoral principle that has found expression in our life. I believe that there never was a period in the history of the world when morality was recognised in trade as fully as it is to-day; but this granted, there is plenty of immorality existent there still — much that is dishonest, unfair, selfish. The immorality of trade accounts for many a stagnation, many a crisis, many a black Friday. Our wrecked ships ought to call attention to the principles on which we have sailed them, and if we find that we have entered into immoral partnerships, brought into our business equivocal principles, made guilty concessions for the sake of realising some coveted gain or pleasure, we need not wonder that our ships have been broken, and we must be careful that the bitterest tears we shed over them are tears of penitence. Our misfortune may be a rebuke to the godless temper in which we have conducted our business. God stands at the back of the natural world and the commercial world, acting with infinite freedom throughout. There is a long chain of things, causes, forces, but the last link of the chain is in the hand of God. Let us accept these catastrophics as rebukes for our lack of religious thought and feeling in practical life. Our misfortunes are blessed if they show us our errors and sins, and lead us into truer pathways. There is no more awful thing in life than for a man to succeed in immoral and godless ways; any blasting wind is good that saves us from that. Thank God for disaster if it only opens our eyes and saves our soul.

II. WE MAY VIEW OUR WRECKED SHIPS IN THE LIGHT OF MERCY. We often see men tried by success, and they fail under the trial ignominiously. God knows what each of His children can and ought to bear, and He will not subject us to any unfitting or excessive ordeal. If your ships had brought the treasure you hoped for, you would have lived in a larger house, you would have ridden instead of walking as you do now, a great many more people would have known you than know you now, you would have sat with Dives instead of being the near neighbour of Lazarus.

III. WE MAY VIEW OUR WRECKED SHIPS IN THE LIGHT OF DISCIPLINE. If we do not regard the frustration of our hopes as aiming immediately at the salvation of our soul, we may certainly regard such disasters as designed to effect the development and enrichment of our soul. And is not this development and enrichment of the soul the grand end of life? Is not the top prize of existence the crown of personal and immortal righteousness? God perfects His people in very different ways; some through wealth, some through want, making both in the end equally complete. The mountains of the earth are all glorious, but, like the stars of the sky, they differ in glory. Up to a certain point life is a course of victory and ever-increasing volume of power and success; then, again, it is a story of frustration and failure; one voyage the ships bring the gold, the next they are broken. But let us be sure that in this way God designs to give us the fulness of perfection. The scientists tell us that during the great southern Glacial Period many southern plants were driven to northerly climates, and then again the glaciation of the northern hemisphere drove northern plants to southerly climates; and so on the Organ mountains of Brazil both Arctic and Antarctic plants are found commingled in strange brotherhood, testifying to the alternate glaciation of the two hemispheres. Brethren, as by the world's changing climate the flowers of the two hemispheres have been assembled on these Brazilian mountains, mingling their divergent beauty and sweetness, so God, by alternations of health and sickness, success and failure, joy and sorrow, brings together in the character of His children all the bright graces of the moral universe.

IV. WE MAY VIEW OUR WRECKED SHIPS IN THE LIGHT OF PROPHECY. They may remind us of the coming day when all our gold ships will go down in Jordan's tide, leaving not a floating spar for us to gather. Keep that before you. Some Colonial writer objecting to Chinese immigration, says, "The Chinaman thinks more of a splendid coffin than he does of an upright life." What a strange charge to bring against a Chinaman! Do not many Englishmen think more of a purple coffin than they do of a noble life? Let us not live for a splendid coffin, but for a splendid character. Let us live that we may be true and pure. Whatever this world has given us, it will soon demand from us, just as the waves of the sea suck back the glittering shells with which they first strewed the shore. Do not sail your soul in your ships. Lay up treasure where moth and rust do not corrupt.

(W. L. Watkinson.)

     4303   metals
     4333   gold
     5407   merchants
     5568   suffering, causes
     5587   trade

1 Kings 22:41-53

     5366   king

1 Kings 22:48-49

     5517   seafaring

Ahab and Micaiah
'And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him? 8. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.'--1 KINGS xxii. 7,8. An ill-omened alliance had been struck up between Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah. The latter, who would have been much better in Jerusalem, had come down to Samaria …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Prophet Micah.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Micah signifies: "Who is like Jehovah;" and by this name, the prophet is consecrated to the incomparable God, just as Hosea was to the helping God, and Nahum to the comforting God. He prophesied, according to the inscription, under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We are not, however, entitled, on this account, to dissever his prophecies, and to assign particular discourses to the reign of each of these kings. On the contrary, the entire collection forms only one whole. At …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Poetical Books (Including Also Ecclesiastes and Canticles).
1. The Hebrews reckon but three books as poetical, namely: Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, which are distinguished from the rest by a stricter rhythm--the rhythm not of feet, but of clauses (see below, No. 3)--and a peculiar system of accentuation. It is obvious to every reader that the poetry of the Old Testament, in the usual sense of the word, is not restricted to these three books. But they are called poetical in a special and technical sense. In any natural classification of the books of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

The Assyrian Revival and the Struggle for Syria
Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)--The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis. Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldaea, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again the offensive along the whole of her frontier line. Image Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik of the time of Sennacherib. The initial cut, …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

Use to be Made of the Doctrine of Providence.
Sections. 1. Summary of the doctrine of Divine Providence. 1. It embraces the future and the past. 2. It works by means, without means, and against means. 3. Mankind, and particularly the Church, the object of special care. 4. The mode of administration usually secret, but always just. This last point more fully considered. 2. The profane denial that the world is governed by the secret counsel of God, refuted by passages of Scripture. Salutary counsel. 3. This doctrine, as to the secret counsel of …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Shepherd of Our Souls.
"I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."--John x. 11. Our Lord here appropriates to Himself the title under which He had been foretold by the Prophets. "David My servant shall be king over them," says Almighty God by the mouth of Ezekiel: "and they all shall have one Shepherd." And in the book of Zechariah, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

Of Councils and their Authority.
1. The true nature of Councils. 2. Whence the authority of Councils is derived. What meant by assembling in the name of Christ. 3. Objection, that no truth remains in the Church if it be not in Pastors and Councils. Answer, showing by passages from the Old Testament that Pastors were often devoid of the spirit of knowledge and truth. 4. Passages from the New Testament showing that our times were to be subject to the same evil. This confirmed by the example of almost all ages. 5. All not Pastors who …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful.
That The Employing Of, And Associating With The Malignant Party, According As Is Contained In The Public Resolutions, Is Sinful And Unlawful. If there be in the land a malignant party of power and policy, and the exceptions contained in the Act of Levy do comprehend but few of that party, then there need be no more difficulty to prove, that the present public resolutions and proceedings do import an association and conjunction with a malignant party, than to gather a conclusion from clear premises. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Of Passages from the Holy Scriptures, and from the Apocrypha, which are Quoted, or Incidentally Illustrated, in the Institutes.
TO THE AUTHORS QUOTED IN THE INSTITUTES PREFATORY ADDRESS TO HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY, THE MOST MIGHTY AND ILLUSTRIOUS MONARCH, FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH, HIS SOVEREIGN; [1] JOHN CALVIN PRAYS PEACE AND SALVATION IN CHRIST. [2] Sire,--When I first engaged in this work, nothing was farther from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

He Does Battle for the Faith; He Restores Peace among those who were at Variance; He Takes in Hand to Build a Stone Church.
57. (32). There was a certain clerk in Lismore whose life, as it is said, was good, but his faith not so. He was a man of some knowledge in his own eyes, and dared to say that in the Eucharist there is only a sacrament and not the fact[718] of the sacrament, that is, mere sanctification and not the truth of the Body. On this subject he was often addressed by Malachy in secret, but in vain; and finally he was called before a public assembly, the laity however being excluded, in order that if it were …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

Sovereignty of God in Administration
"The LORD hath prepared His Throne In the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all" (Psa. 103:19). First, a word concerning the need for God to govern the material world. Suppose the opposite for a moment. For the sake of argument, let us say that God created the world, designed and fixed certain laws (which men term "the laws of Nature"), and that He then withdrew, leaving the world to its fortune and the out-working of these laws. In such a case, we should have a world over which there was no intelligent, …
Arthur W. Pink—The Sovereignty of God

Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most …
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times

General Principles of Interpretation. 1 Since the Bible Addresses Men in Human Language...
CHAPTER XXXIV. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. 1. Since the Bible addresses men in human language, and according to human modes of thinking and speaking, the interpreter's first work is to ascertain the meaning of the terms employed. Here he must proceed as in the case of other writings, seeking by the aid of grammars, lexicons, cognate languages, ancient versions, ancient interpreters, and whatever other outward helps are available, to gain a thorough knowledge of the language employed by …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Commerce
The remarkable change which we have noticed in the views of Jewish authorities, from contempt to almost affectation of manual labour, could certainly not have been arbitrary. But as we fail to discover here any religious motive, we can only account for it on the score of altered political and social circumstances. So long as the people were, at least nominally, independent, and in possession of their own land, constant engagement in a trade would probably mark an inferior social stage, and imply …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The Figurative Language of Scripture.
1. When the psalmist says: "The Lord God is a sun and shield" (Psa. 84:11), he means that God is to all his creatures the source of life and blessedness, and their almighty protector; but this meaning he conveys under the figure of a sun and a shield. When, again, the apostle James says that Moses is read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day (Acts 15:21), he signifies the writings of Moses under the figure of his name. In these examples the figure lies in particular words. But it may be embodied …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract. …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament