enemy. In fact, one who is careful to trace the analogies of customs and usages, does not expect to find many that are peculiar to any people.

The trunk of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, not being available as trophies, were gibbeted by way of insult and intimidation, on the walls of Bethshan—a place not far from the field of battle, towards the Jordan. To the Jews, whose law forbade such exposure of a dead body beyond the sunset of the first day, this dreadful spectacle was far more disgusting and horrible than it would, until recently, have been to us, whose roads and shores, and solitary places, have within the memory of living men been defiled with corpses similarly exposed. It is possible that the Philistines, knowing how adverse this practice was to the customs of the Israelites, and how revolting it must seem to them, were all the more inclined to treat the body of Saul thus ignominiously.

Shocked as the Israelites were, none ventured to interfere save the men of Jabesh, whose grateful remembrance of their deliverance by Saul at the commencement of his reign, impelled them to undertake the bold and dangerous enterprise of rescuing the remains of their benefactor and his sons from this disgrace. They travelled at least ten miles, and having crossed the Jordan, stole away the bodies by night, in the face, as it were, of a hostile garrison. Returning the same night to Jabesh, they there burned the bodies, and having gathered up the bones, buried them under a tree, and mourned and fasted seven days for their fallen king. It was not the custom of the Jews to burn the dead, as among the Greeks and Romans. There must, therefore, have been some special reason for the men of Jabesh burning the remains of these princes. It was probably to prevent the possibility of the Philistines again maltreating the dead bodies, in case that, finding they had been taken away, they should search after them, and discover the place in which they had been deposited.

This act of devoted attachment was well calculated to impress the susceptible heart of David, especially as one of the corpses thus rescued from disgrace was that of his beloved Jonathan.

He wished the men of Jabesh-gilead to feel, that although Saul had treated him as an enemy, and although he had reaped advantage from his death, such proofs of attachment to the fallen prince were not displeasing to him, but were entirely in unison with his own sentiments. He notified that the tribe of Judah had anointed him king, and intimated that, in case they also adhered to him, they might expect his special consideration and protection. This, as we take it, was the purport of his message: 'Blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have showed kindness to Saul your lord, and have buried him. Now may the Lord show you kindness and truth, and I also will requite your kindness. Therefore let your hands be strong, and be ye valiant; for though your master Saul is dead, yet the house of Judah have anointed me king over them.'

This was a very kind and considerate message.

It must

be admitted that, in sending it, David assumes a certain right to acknowledge officially a public service, and invites them to recognise his authority. Such a recognition on the part of persons who had evinced so much attachment to Saul, could not but have much weight with others. But what rendered it the more proper was, the probability that the Philistines might attempt to call them to account for the deed they had achieved; in which case he encourages them to hold out, in the assured expectation, notwithstanding his recent connection with the Philistines, that they should receive the same assistance and support from him as they had formerly received from Saul. If this promise be, as we apprehend, involved in the message of David to the men of Jabesh-gilead, it must have been full of significance to a wider audience than that to which it was addressed, as it assured the people that his duty to the nation was, in his view, superior to all considerations of recent obligation to the Philistines, and that he should, notwithstanding this, be ready to take arms against them if their conduct presented an adequate reason and provocation. Such an assurance could not, under the circumstances of the time, have been more openly expressed; and if taken in the sense we have defined, it could not but convey a most satisfactory intimation to the

people, that he was not at all disposed to reign by mere sufferance of the Philistines, or as their tool or instrument,a suspicion of which might naturally have been engendered by his late intercourse with them, his protection by them, his obligations to them, and the apparent willingness he had manifested to fight under their banners against his own people.

Thirty-sixth Week-First Day.

THE TURNING POINT.

THERE is a feature in God's providential dealings with his people, which is strikingly exemplified in that portion of David's history which has passed under our survey. It is this: Afflictions and trials are often allowed to accumulate, one after another, without rest or pause, for a certain time, until a point of such accumulated wretchedness is reached, that it seems as if the last point to which even human endurance can stretch— the utmost pitch to which even heavenly sustainments can uphold this earthy essence-has been attained, and that it needs but one atom more added to the agglomerated burden of these troubles, to break the spirit on which it has been piled up. Then, at what seems to us the last moment, He who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are but dust—He who will never suffer us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear -appears as a deliverer. With his strong hand He lifts the burden from the shoulder, and casts it afar off; tenderly does He anoint and bind up the deep sores it has worn in the flesh, and pour in the oil and the wine; and graciously does He lead us forth into the fresh and green pastures, where we may lie down at ease under the warm sunshine of his countenance, till all the frightful past becomes as a half-remembered dream-a tale that is told.

In David's case, the long misery of the first stage of his public career seems to have reached its culminating point when, on ́his return to Ziklag, he found his pleasant home burnt up with fire-his wives and children borne away into captivity, he knew not whither surrounded by men who were the sharers in this calamity, and who, in the bitterness of their spirits, mutinied against their leader, and placed his very life in peril.

6

This was the trial. It was, as Joab said of another trial, many years after, the worst to him of all the evil that had befallen him from his youth until now.' This was a sign that relief was at hand. When things are at the worst, as the common proverb says, they must mend. And they mended with David from that hour. And this was not because things were then at the worst with him, but because, being at the worst, he fought that great fight of affliction well. HE ENCOURAGED HIMSELF IN THE LORD HIS GOD;' and he found that his encouragements in God exceeded beyond all measure his discouragements from man, although friends combined with enemies to discourage him then. From that moment when he believingly cast all his dependence upon the Lord his God only, whom he had found faithful in all his promises, and whose providence had never failed him in his deepest dangers -from that moment he was safe-from that moment he was prosperous. 'God loves'-and this David well knew-says an old writer,1' to reserve his holy hand for a dead lift in behalf of his servants in covenant with Him, when there is a damp upon their hopes, and a death upon their helps.'

Now that the time of change was come, all things went well with him, and his prosperity increased like a river, gathering strength and fulness in its course, until, long after, a great crime stayed its course, and overwhelmed him with tides of trouble and grief, compared with which the trials of his early days were light. This Ziklag is laid in ashes; but no sooner is he left shelterless than God provides him a better city, even Hebron, a city of refuge, and most truly a refuge to him. Saul dies at this time to give him room. 'Now doth David find the comfort,' says Bishop Hall, that his extremity sought in the Lord his God. Now are his clouds for a time passed over, and the sun breaks gloriously forth. David shall reign after his sufferings. So shall we, if we endure to the end, find a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give us at that day.' With regard to his taking with him his companions to be the sharers of his better fortunes, while their

1CHRISTOPHER NESS.