1. Who was Solomon? 2. Whose son was he? 3. What was he king of? 4. How old was he when he began to be king? 5. What did God say to him at night? 6. What did Solomon wish for most? 7. What did God give him besides? 8. Why did God give him all these things when he did not ask for them? 9. What should we care about most? 10. What will God do for us if we care most about goodness? 11. How will He help us to get wise? 12. But what must we do ourselves?
THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.—1 Kings 3:26, 27.
THIRD READING.
"The wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.—1 Kings 3:28.
HERE is a story to show how wise and clever King Solomon was. One day when he was sitting on his throne two women came to him: one with a live baby, the other with a dead one, both boys, and just of the same age. They said they had been living alone together in the same house, each with her little baby, till one night one of the women rolled over her child in her sleep and smothered it, so that she found it was dead.
But each woman said it was not her baby but the other's that was dead, and that the mother of the dead one had put the little corpse down by the other sleeping woman, and taken her living child out of her bosom to herself. How was it to be known which was right?—for nobody out of the house knew the two little ones apart, and each of the women declared that she was the mother of the live child, not of the dead. So they came to the king to judge between them.
