feel, even when later on they fought against each other with all their skill and might. In a way they were friends still. There is a kindly, humorous tone in David's boastful fault-finding, when three years after this he, the hunted fugitive, had passed by the sleeping Abner, and stolen Saul's spear and cruse of water from his very side.

Art not thou a valiant man?-he says,—and who is like unto thee in Israel?-1 SAM. xxvi. 15.

-It was a little bit of comrade triumph; what though Abner was pledged to his royal cousin, and might never be true comrade with David any more? Even when Saul and Jonathan were both slain, Abner persistently bent his great strength against the king whom God had chosen, and for years upheld the lost cause. David was to be king,-and still Abner headed the fight against him, and still won successes, making Ish-bosheth (for a time)

King over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel.—2 SAM. ii. 9.

Tender too, and gene

-A grand, mistaken, valiant man. rous, and pitiful wherever he could be. After the sore battle' with Joab, when Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before the servants of David, and Abner fled away, there followed him the brother of the captain of David's host-young Asahel,-'light of foot as a wild roe.' Abner was not that any longer, if he ever had been years had weighted his limbs, and now fatigue and chagrin made them even heavier than usual. And as the nimble feet of Asahel came lightly speeding on behind him, Abner never thought of trying to outrun him. He merely looked round to see

whom and how many he had to fight with. And it was only young Asahel, the headstrong, foolhardy fellow, singling out to himself the scarred veteran of Saul's host, and turning not 'to the right hand nor to the left' from following him. All the fierce heat of battle had died out of Abner's veins, and he felt sore-hearted, tired of killing. And knowing how any encounter between them must end, he once and again besought Asahel to turn aside and slay some one whom he could slay, and take his armour. And when the young soldier would not be warned off-since it must come,without turning to look again, apparently,-Abner gave a backward thrust of his great spear, and Asahel's young life

was gone.

It checked all pursuit on that path for the time: 'As many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died, stood still:' and Abner went on safe, but yet more wearyhearted. Else he would hardly have paused even in the gathering dusk to remind Joab that he and his men were 'following their brethren.' Joab sent back the well-merited reproach that the whole fight this day was Abner's doing; yet the people did stop and turn, and went back and counted their losses, not large, except for one item.

There lacked of David's servants nineteen men and Asahel.

-The brave young runner. And after he was laid to rest in Bethlehem, there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David;' and 'Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul.'

And five years came and went, and still the war held on, and still Joab treasured his blood revenge, and had no

chance to slake it. Then Abner-confident and carelessventured right in among his enemies, and sought peace with David, tendering his allegiance. And David, knowing the man, received him and entertained him and sent him away in peace, and when he heard of his treacherous death, charged home the guilt where it belonged, and declared himself utterly clear in the matter.

Joab and Abishai his brother slew Abner, because he had slain their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle.-2 SAM. iii. 30.

-The king ordered a public funeral and a general procession ; and even Joab was bid to follow with rent clothes, and to hear the lament and the eulogy.

And king David himself followed the bier. And they buried Abner in Hebron and the king lifted up his voice, and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept.-2 SAM. iii. 31.

-And with some of his short, graphic words, David mourned over his former enemy; setting forth how he had fallen, before wicked men and not as they. The king also kept the grief-fast rigidly until the sun was down; and it pleased the people,-the historian adding lovingly :

As whatsoever the king did pleased all the people.-2 SAM. iii. 36.

-Somehow they appreciated a ruler who was not afraid to risk his throne on such perilous foundations as truth and justice.

And the king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel? And I am this day weak, though anointed king.

-Abner's undoubted honour, his staunch loyalty even

though they had been at times misplaced and misdirected-were a dead loss to the country and to the world. But for these hot-headed friends, who forgot the king's honour and set at nought his safe-conduct to gratify their own personal feuds,-from them the righteous soul of David turned away.

These men the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for me.-2 SAM. iii. 39.

-David was very keen against treachery then. And if Joab had not showed himself so ready a hand at it, I wonder if the king would ever have fallen in the matter of Uriah the Hittite? For it was to Joab he wrote, saying,

Set Uriah in the forefront of the battle.-2 Sam. xi. 15.

These suggestions of evil!

That no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.-Roм. xiv. 13.

XXIX.

In the Dust.

Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped.—2 SAM. xii. 20.

I AM not a bit of a quietist. They miss one of the sweetest of all things, and in its place put one that is half impossible and all undesirable. You must have no will, they say: no choice, no wish. No will?-that is true; but not because it has no existence, only because it is all given up to Christ. You would not have your will done against his will, not if you could. You choose his will, so soon as you know it. But until you know it, how can you help having a choice, a wish of your own?-unless you have stiffened into a mere machine. The Lord calls for a living sacrifice; not one that is half dead. He demands that the will and choice and desire, all full of life, be slain even so at his altar, and there burnt to ashes at his word. But according to the quietists, the apostle must have been quite wrong when he said:

In everything let your requests be made known unto God.-PHIL. iv. 6.

-At that rate we are to have no 'requests.' Nay, truly;

R