Excerpt from History of Israel, Vol. 4 Israel had now of its own accord, though not Without the influence of a higher force, entered on a new phase of its existence, in which the question would inevitably arise whether or not it would succeed in finding that larger prosperity which was the fond hope of the majority. It brought with it out of its past into the new and unknown future which lay before it, an abundance of recently-acquired and material blessings, the elevating sense of extensive power and dignity among the other nations of the world, together with the strong impulse to seek after wisdom even in every department of Nature. Nor was this all. Those who were moved by a deeper and sincerer Spirit further added the clear consciousness that Israel had only attained this prosperity and importance by a faithful and strenuous adhesion to the true religion, and they kept up either the active aspiration after a still more perfect king than David, or the blessed recollection of how the goal of this new stage of their history, the perfect human king of the community of the true God, had been in David almost if not altogether reached. That Solomon had, in the latter part of his reign, fallen further and further below this standard, was plainly recognised by the prophets and all the better minds of Israel; but neither of the two states into which the monarchy was now divided, had any clear idea how it was to be attained. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.