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the king was accustomed to receive messages, so to speak, from Jehovah; one of which delivered not long before, while it restrained him from building a temple to the Lord, had assured him of a long career of honour and of royal rank to his posterity. But now the seer came on a different errand. By a very beautiful allegory, wherein a rich man is described as taking the solitary ewe lamb of his poor neighbour, and dressing it for a guest that had come to him, Nathan set forth the enormity of the king's offence; and David having declared that such cruelty deserved, and ought to be visited with the penalty of death, could not, when the whole truth was made manifest to him, draw back from his own

judgment. "Now, therefore," said the prophet, "the sword shall never depart from thy house;" and "because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die." David, who had married the partner of his guilt as soon as decency would permit, had flattered himself that there was an end to his difficulties. But he continued under the delusion only till the voice of inspiration dispelled it; for the child which was born to him by Bathsheba sickened and died, in spite of his bitter and earnest entreaties that God would show mercy and annul his own decree.

With all his generosity, his faith, his love of truth, and rooted piety, David seems to have been sadly the slave of the body and of its passions. He multiplied to himself wives and concubines, to such a degree, that though the father of many sons and daughters, only two of these, Absalom the eldest and Tamar his sister, were born of the same mother. Moreover, David was weakly attached to all his

children, and Absalom in particular seems to have gained a complete mastery over him. As usually happens in lands where polygamy is allowed, these young people do not seem to have borne much good will one towards another. Hence the sins of the father were not only visited on the children, but the children became God's instruments for punishing the errors of the parent. And the punishment proved to be terrible.

B. C. 1032.—Tamar, David's daughter, was a fair and very amiable young person. She inspired her kinsman Amnon with a wicked passion; and, finding no other means of gratifying his desires, he did her cruel violence. She fled to her own brother Absalom, and told her griefs; and he plotted a deep revenge. Having persuaded her to keep silence, he went and came among his kindred, for two years, as if no special scheme engrossed him; and succeeded, as indeed he desired to do, in creating a general persuasion that the outrage was forgiven. This end gained, he invited Amnon to a feast at his country house, and there slew him. As usually happens in similar cases, an exaggerated report of the catastrophe reached David. He was told that Absalom had put the whole of his brothers to death; and, like one who is overwhelmed with grief and horror, the king refused to be comforted. Nor when the truth came to be known was his mind more at ease. David doated on Absalom; and hence, while he wept the dead Amnon, he wept even hotter tears over the fate of his favourite, who, to escape the vengeance of the law, fled out of Israel, and took shelter at Geshur, the capital of his mother's father, under whom, in the day of his exile, David had served.

B.C. 1027.- Nature had been generous in her

gifts of personal beauty to Absalom. His manners, also, were winning, and he knew how to conciliate the multitude. His absence, therefore, from his father's court was much and generally deplored. It was clear, likewise, that other society did not compensate David for the loss of that of his son; and hence Joab very soon contrived an artful scheme to enlist the king's consistency on the side of his prejudices. All the obstacles presented by law to the return of the exile were removed. Absalom was recalled, and, after a brief sojourn in disgrace at his own house, he returned to the favour of his father.

CHAP. XXVI.

SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL-continued.

ABSALOM'S REBELLION. HIS DEATH. NUMBERING

OF THE PEOPLE.

B. C. 1025.

DAVID'S DEATH.

Two years had not elapsed after the restoration of Absalom to favour, ere the people began to exhibit signs of impatience under the government of the king. David's wars, however successful, seem to have wearied them; and his unrelenting severity towards idolatry, and opposition to the impure habits arising out of it, disgusted a race still as prone as their fathers had been to seek the indulgence of the hour at all hazards.

It would appear, too, that from some cause or another, the course of justice did not run so smooth as of old; and that persons who came from afar to

plead one against another, were not always sure of getting a hearing. Now Absalom was full of ambition. He listened, likewise, to evil counsellors; and soon began to turn his popularity to a bad account. He affected great zeal in the people's cause. He spoke slightingly respecting the royal care of their interests, and so won upon the giddy multitude that a vast majority of them began to look to him as their best friend. He did not discourage the feeling. Bathsheba had borne another son, of whom he pretended that he had good reason to be jealous; and at last, after his emissaries had well done their part, he raised the standard of rebellion. The act seems to have taken David quite by surprise. Either because he had not force enough to maintain the place, or that he distrusted the loyalty of the capital, he hastily retreated from Jerusalem, and Absalom, coming in soon afterwards, was, amid the acclamations of the mob, hailed as king.

B. C. 1021. The rebellion thus excited was a very formidable one, and had Absalom followed up his first success with vigour, the consequences might have been serious. But he lingered in the capital amid scenes of debauchery and vice, to the disgust of some of the ablest as well as the most rancorous of his counsellors. Meanwhile David retreating towards the Jordan, had time to collect a considerable force at a place called Mahanaim; and there, when Absalom did take the field, he prepared to give battle. But the feelings of the father were still a great deal more powerful than those of the king. Being constrained by his subjects not to expose himself, he abode within the city walls, but gave, as his last orders to Joab, that not, on any account whatever, should Absalom be injured, far less slain. Joab, however, thought

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rather of his duty as a good subject, than of humouring the caprices of the king. And therefore, finding Absalom caught by his hair in a thicket, he slew him, with wanton cruelty, perhaps, but not without a righteous purpose.

David never forgave the deed. The defeat of the rebels, and the re-establishment of the throne were alike forgotten in his grief over the slaughter of his favourite; and he began almost immediately to meditate the overthrow of a servant, whose influence and hardihood of character cast all his other good qualities into the shade. But Joab proved too strong for his master. A fresh rebellion broke out. The officer whom David employed to suppress it, exhibited a lamentable deficiency in the courage and decision which carried Joab triumphantly through every enterprise; and Joab having slain his rival, assumed once more, without a remonstrance from Jerusalem, the command of the troops. He put down the second rebellion as effectively as he had suppressed the first, and by the stern force of his character, kept the place, from which his master did not dare to remove him.

B. C. 1020.—The reign of David continued for about seven years after the suppression of this last rebellion. It was marked by a course of great prosperity, interrupted by two signal calamities, and no more; and though it came to an end amid circumstances which seemed, at one moment to threaten confusion, the good conduct of the king, and the wise counsels of his advisers, averted the evil. David himself, as old age advanced upon him, went out no more to battle. But his army, well disciplined and ably commanded, sustained no reverse abroad, and his guards, as well as the fidelity and diligence of his civil magistrates,