Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-07-30
QUEEN Of SHEDA IN
SEARCH Of THE BEST
Showered Quantities of Rich Pres
ents on King Solomon and Re-
ceived Many in Return
WAS FORCEFUL MEINIST
The international Sunday School
Lesson For August 4. Queen
of Sheba Visits Solomon
(By William T. Ellis)

(By William T. Ellis)
One of the stimulating Kipling
poems is called The Files" and 1t
narrates how you NAV find all the
new things of to-day in the news
paper files of long ago. Just now
the world is agog over the new
woman, and, opportunely the sun
day School Lesson introduces that
forceful feminist, the Queen of Sheba,
in quest of the best.
Nearly three thousand years have
passed since this remarkable woman
travelled fifteen hundred miles from
her home in Arabia, by slow camel
pace, across the desert sands to take
counsel with wise King Solomon.
Throughout all these ages she has
been a pictorial figure in proverb and
story, and her single phrase, The
| half has never been told" is one Of
| the commonest coins current in uni
versal speech. Legend, among Mos
| lens and Christians alike, has been
busy with this wonderful womans
name; but these fanciful stories in
terest us less than her message to
/ our own times upon the woman
| question which is this:
Problems are not primarily prob
lens of sex, but of personality. The
| SllOnS CAiTaSleT makes lIS way, re-
| gardless of limitations of sex or
conditions. The Queen of Sheba ranks
! second only to Solomon in the annals
| OF their time. Even back in the dark
/ days of woman's subjection, there
shine brilliant names. like Deborah
and Abigail and Jezebel and Zenobia
and Cleopatra. These women We're
| personalities, although not all were
good women.
1t Would be a mistake to let the
girls of to-day gain the impression
that any material change IL to be
effected in woman's sphere or fortune
apart from the development of indi-
vidual character. There is now, and
there will continue TO be, as the
greatest desideratum in the so-called
woman movement" the need for pre-
eminent personalities, women who can
be leaders in the world.
Some American Queens
1t is pertinent to recall that North
America has been singularly produc-
| tive of women of force and enter
I prise. who yet held steadfastly aloft
the torch of idealism. These hero
ines Of faith have some qualities
! sheba. One Of them, Victoria Muir
! dock, of Wichita, was pictured,
shortly after her death, by her son,
| eX-Congressman Victory Murdock in
tribute of singular appeal 1 quote
from The Literary Digest" those
passages which deal particularly with
the spiritual qualities Of this woman
Of affairs:
Beautiful as her whole life was
beautiful as she was, she was most
beautiful in her faith. 1t needed no
sustaining argument. 1t offered moth
ing in rebuttal 1t never weakened
nor grew suddenly strong. 1t simply
was as strong, as enduring, as un-
answera Bile, and immovable as a gran
ite mountain. She made a courteous
show OF gentle patience with the oc-
casional or habitual doubters, but in
wardly l imagine that she held the
doubling intellect to be meager or
sappily immature.
Her life was full of change and
incident. of activity always. She
knew JOY in its full measure-and
sorrow: she had lost five children:
she had known hardship and ease,
ambition, realization, disappointment,
but her faith remained single, stable,
| fixed point. Nor was it silent faith
to be cuddled out of harms way. It
was a faith as sure and final as Pauls.
It put the Keystone of the Resurrec-
! tion in the arch, because it knew the
arch would fall without it. This is
the faith not only of the gentle soul
who does not know why it should be
so, but it is the work of the strong
soul who knows"
a Queens Woman-way
| In some degree. there exists in every
woman's breast that quality which led
the Queen of Sheba to Jerusalem-the
| Unsuitable longing for the best. Some
| times with lesser women, this noble
yearning for highest good, takes the
form of mere social emulation. Com
{ monty, 1t incites mothers to send
| forth their sons TO dare and do
greatly. 1t is also revealed in the re-
ligious instinct. which makes woman
the chief supporter of the church and
| temple and shrine in all lands. Every
woman is naturally a priestess at the
altar of idealism. God pity the race,
/ If womanhood ever loses this impulse.
! This dominant motive expressed it.
/ Queen of Sheba. She had curiosity,
the desire to know Also she had a
sense of responsibility for her office
| she wanted to learn the best ways of
ruling her people. Ambitious for a
great court and a great reign, she
| sought to examine into Soomons ad-
ministration. Also, feminine fashion
she desired to talk over her problems
with a wise counselor; the normal
woman wants to discuss her problems,
small or great, with some other per-
son, and, preferably. with a man.
The Cablegrams From Sheba
Within a week of the writing of
these lines, meager cablegrams have
come from the East. reporting the
landward attack upon Alden by the
Arabs of the Yemen. I wonder how
many persons connected the news with
the Queen of Sheba? Yet the Yemen,
that most turbulent and fanatical sec
ton of Arabia. is the ancient Sheba;
and Alden, the British stronghold at
the entrance to the Red Sea, was once
her seaport. This latest news told of
the discontinue of the camel corps;
for still, as in the queens day, the
camel is the express train of Arabia
and his average speed is three miles
an hour. To this day the spices leave
Yemen as the queen Travelled to Jeru-
salem, by the camel caravan, the water
for passengers being slung across the
! animals backs in gurgling goatskins.
We are so accustomed to thinking
Of the Jewish nation in terms of the
| present Palestine that we forget that
Solomon's kingdom extended clear to
| the Red Sea, and that where now
stands the miserable little town of
| Akaba, at the head of the gulf of the
same name, was once the seaport Of
| Solomon. As British warships have