1 Kings 6:1-14 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt… If Milton says that "a book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life," and affirms that we may "as well kill a man as kill a good book," then the Divine voice whispers that the soul is the precious life-temple into which three score years and ten have swept their thoughts, and dreams, and hopes, and prayers, and tears, and committed all their treasures into the hands of that God who never slumbers and never sleeps. Slowly the soul's temple rises, slowly reason sad conscience make beautiful the halls of imagination, the galleries of memory, the chambers of affection. Character is a structure that rises under the direction of a Divine Master-Builder. Full oft a Divine form enters the earthly scene. Thoughts that are not man's enter the mind. Hopes that are not his, like angels, knock at his door to aid him in his work. Even death is no "Vandal." When the body has done its work, death pulls the body down as Tintoretto, toiling upon his ceiling, pulled down his scaffold to reveal to men a ceiling glorious with lustrous beauty. At the gateway of ancient Thebes, watchmen stood to guard the wicked city. Upon the walls of bloody Babylon soldiers walked the long night through, ever keeping the towers where tyranny dwelt. And if kings think that dead stones and breathless timbers are worthy of guarding, we may believe that God doth set keepers to guard the living city of man's soul. Man's soul is God's living temple. It is not kept by earthly hands. It is eternal in the heavens. (N. D. Hillis, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. |
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