DAVID FINDETH SAUL ASLEEP IN THE

TRENCH.

SAUL having learned from the Ziphites where David had concealed himself in order to escape his vengeance, took with him three thousand men, and encamped in the neighbourhood of Hachilah, a hill among the defiles of which David and his men had sought refuge from the royal tyranny. Anxious to ascertain the strength of Saul's army, "David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched his tents: and David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his host: and Saul lay in the trench, and the people pitched round about him*." David was accompanied upon this occasion by his nephew Abishai, who, when he found that Saul and all his host were wrapped in sleep, proposed putting the king to death at once, and thus securing his uncle's future safety; but to this David objected, considering it a crime of the highest enormity to slay the Lord's anointed. In order, however, that he might prove his forbearance at a suitable time, he desired Abishai to remove to their secret abode in the mountain, a cruse of water and a spear, which were placed at Saul's head. Then David, having retired to a distance, ascended an eminence, and in a loud voice upbraided Abner for his remissness in leaving his master exposed to the sword of an enemy. Upon which Saul, hearing his voice, rose, and perceiving the peril from which he had escaped through the generosity of the man whom he had so long and grievously wronged, invited his approach in accents of kindness and encouragement. David then expostulated with him much in the same manner that he had done after Saul's escape from the cave, adding to what he had formerly said, that by obliging him to quit the land of his nativity, the king had forced him to associate with heathens and idolators, by which he had reduced him to the necessity of joining in their unholy rites. Saul immediately acknowledged his error, charged himself with cruelty, applauded David's generosity, and gave him his most solemn assurance that he would never again make any attempt upon his life.

NATHAN REPROVING DAVID.

DAVID having become enamoured of the wife of an officer in his army which was then besieging Rabbah, a chief city of the Ammonites, had criminal intercourse with her during her husband's absence, and concluded by sending private orders to his general, Joab, to have the husband slain. Accordingly, in an assault upon the Ammonitish city, being abandoned by the soldiers, as had been preconcerted between them and their general, the deserted Hittite was immediately surrounded by the enemy and slain. As soon as Uriah was dead, his wife made a show of mourning for him, though her sorrow was shortly "turned into joy" by her becoming the spouse of her sovereign upon the expiration of the days of her mourning. The happiness of the royal criminal and the adultress, whose husband he had caused to be murdered, was soon interrupted by God sending a prophet to announce to David the penalty which he had incurred by this grievous crime. Nathan having represented to him in a beautiful parable a picture of his iniquity, induced the king, before he was conscious of the application of this parable to his own crimes, to pronounce himself deserving of the most exemplary chastisement. No sooner had Nathan obtained this admission from the royal offender, than with the sacred privilege which his prophetic office conferred upon him, he "said to David, thou art the man!"* and concluded by foretelling at considerable length the miseries that would eventually befall his family, which would be preceded by the death of the issue of his criminal intercourse with the wife of Uriah. In the illustration, the king appears cowering under the awful denunciation of the prophet, who stands before him exercising the authority of a delegate of the Most High.