"Here in the body pent, Absent from Him I roam; If these antique Eastern hymns served no other purpose than to show that the Church invisible and universal, built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets, has ever been one-in its conflicts, its fears, its hopes, and its victories; that the temptations which assail it have been the same in all ages, and have been vanquished by the same weapons; if they do but establish a community of sympathy, apart from all polemics, between the Christians of those ages who have gone home and those who are on their way thither, their long-buried treasures will not have been brought to light in vain. But even before the tide of Greek sacred song had began to ebb, the Eastern Church was in its autumn, and its faith was wrinkled over with those superstitions which are the forerunners of decay. Its very melodies were tainted, and numbers of the later hymns of the Greek service-books, no longer occupied with the spiritual realities of the Gospel, clustered round objects of sense, apostrophising in the language of a maudlin religious sentimentality the manger in which Lord lay, the raiment which He wore, the cross on which He suffered, and the place of His brief sojourn with the dead. our The best hymns of the Eastern Church are throughout rich in narrative and scriptural allusion, abounding in praises for redemption, in utterances of penitence and self-abasement, and in vivid descriptions of the Christian warfare; but they are poor as comparel with the glorious hymnology which succeeded, in the expression of the yearnings of the heavenly homesickness; in the devout tenderness, often rising into rapture, wherewith Faith clasps the crucified Redeemer when wrapt into mystical contemplation of the glory given Him by the Father as Lord and Head of His Church. The lines with which this paper concludes are s translation of the earliest hymn extant; the earliest uninspired composition in which our Lord Jesus Christ is united in the ascription of praise with the Fathe and the Holy Ghost. We pass upwards along the farstretching vista of hymns but to find that a doxology hallowed by the use of seventeen centuries is full of the praises of Him then but lately crucified and ascended, who waits to be crowned at the end of all things King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and we rejoice that through the long Christian era the Name which is above every name has united the whole family in heaven and earth. HYMN AT THE LIGHTING OF THE EVENING Hail, JESUS CHRIST! Hail, gladdening LIGHT Now while the sun is setting, THEE the world shall praise for ever! Hymn of the 1st or 2nd Century. Preserved by ST. BASIL, ISABELLA L. BIRD SAUL, FIRST KING OF ISRAEL. CHAPTER VII.-SAUL'S JEALOUSY OF DAVID. to that of Saul. Without entering into its details, let us rapidly review this epoch of Saul's life, with a view chiefly of tracing the rise and progress of that passion by which the king's breast was tormented for ⠀ so many years. Ir would appear that during the period (perhaps a very brief one) of David's first attendance on the court, the idea had never dawned on the mind of Saul that this was he who was to succeed him in the kingdom. David was then too young for such a thought to have occurred. He was only thirty years old at the This passion had a sudden birth and a rapid devetime of Saul's death. For some years previously, his lopment. The random songs of the bands of women life had been that of a persecuted outlaw. When furnished but a slender foundation for it to rest upon; brought into Saul's presence, after killing the Philis- yet at first it had no other. We have no reason to tine giant, he could not have been much above twenty believe that at this time Saul had any knowledge of years of age, and yet Saul asked him then,-as if he Samuel's anointing of David. That event had taken had never seen him before,- "Whose son art thou, place years before. The knowledge of it was confined thou young man?" The only way of reconciling the to the members of Jesse's family-nor would it be accounts given in the 16th and 17th chapters of known till long afterwards even by them what the 1st Samuel, is by supposing that such a length of time object of the anointing was. Saul's only ground for had elapsed since David had first been with the king, suspicion was the sudden favour that David met with, and that such a change had taken place in his appear- and the manner in which his triumph over the ance, that Saul did not at first recognise him when he Philistines had been celebrated. A passion springing presented himself after the slaughter of Goliath. If from such a source might have taken some time ere it were so, David would be too young at the time it reached its maturity. Saul might have waited, when he first struck his harp to soothe the distem- watched, inquired till something more was heard or pered spirit of his sovereign, for the suspicion to enter seen, ere he settled it in his mind that the young the mind of Saul that this was the neighbour-the Bethlehemite was the man that was to supplant him. better than he-of whom Samuel had spoken as He will not, cannot do so. A deep-rooted hatred, already divinely designated to the throne. It was that nothing but the death of its object will satiate, very different when he returned from the overthrow has sprung up at once full-grown within his heart. of the gigantic Philistine. He had done a deed that "And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. placed him at once above the most distinguished of And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil the people and put his name into the mouth of the spirit from God came upon Saul, . . . and David joyous bands who came forth out of all the cities of played with his hand, as at other times: and there Israel, singing and dancing and playing upon instru- was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the ments, answering to one another, as they sung and javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the danced and played, "Saul hath slain his thousands, wall with it." (1 Sam. xviii. 9—11.) When the and David his ten thousands." It was but a burst of strange fit was on him Saul had done perhaps as momentary gratitude in which they gave the youthful strange a thing as this without its being imagined champion credit for all the thousands of the Philis- that it sprung from any deep-seated passion. But tines who had fallen after Goliath's death. the fit leaves him, and the rankling jealousy is exploit of David had so far outrivalled any other indi- as strong as ever, thirsting for blood. Prudence vidual service rendered to the state that they found pleads against any open attempt on David's life. no better form of expressing their admiration than Craft tries its hand. David is young and inexpe by comparing it with the greatest of Saul's victories. rienced. He who by a chance slinging of a stone had They might not seriously mean to set that one service killed the Philistine, might make but a sorry leader of David above all that Saul had ever done for the of a troop; if entrusted with command might commit state. The words, however, struck gratingly upon some blunder that would reduce or destroy his fame. the ear and sank deep into the heart of the king. In Saul makes him captain of a thousand men, and a direct comparison between the two, the superiority sends him off where none of the older officers will be was assigned to David. The words of Samuel occur near him to give him counsel, entrusting him with the to the memory of the king. The thought flashes upon dangerous and responsible task of guarding part of him that this may be "the neighbour-the better the frontier line. But David's wisdom equals his than himself." David was a neighbour; a Beth- bravery. And the king fears and hates him all the lehemite, residing not far from Gibeah. And till now more, the more he proves himself worthy of all the Saul had never seen the man in Israel, except the old praise that had been lavished on him. The king's prophet, whom the people would have spoken of as honour had been pledged that whoever killed Goliath better than the king. And Saul eyed David from that should have the king's daughter as his wife. The day and forward;-eyed him with a gnawing envy, pledge is broken. Saul will not give his daughter to a bitter and vengeful hate. The history of the the man he so much dislikes. He must do someyears that follow, as given in the ten chapters of the thing, however, to cover the breach of faith, and so 1st Book of Samuel, from the seventeenth to the he offers Merab to David on condition of his valiantly twenty-seventh, belongs more to the life of David than fighting the Lord's battles; his mean and malicious The one hope being that the sword of the Philistines may do what his own javelin had failed to effect. David makes no complaint, accepts the new condition, fights every battle that comes in his way, earns Merab a second time, but she is given to another. The double deceit, the public dishonour inflicted, might well have tempted David to mutiny, and so brought on the very quarrel the king was seeking to create. By prudent silence David saves himself from danger, and his prince from doing him redoubled wrong. Saul hears now that his second daughter, Michal, is attached to David. Perhaps it was David's attachment to her that made him sit so silently under the open insult of having the king's daughter twice promised and twice refused. He will do more-will run heavier risks to win Michal than Merab. The king may impose upon him any condition that he pleases, and quickly seizing the opportunity he does lay down one the executing of which was far more difficult and perilous than the slaughter of Goliath. David accomplishes the task; Michal cannot be refused, and he becomes the king's son-in-law. Again the Philistines come out to battle, and again David behaves himself more wisely and more valiantly than all the servants of Saul, and stands, not by marriage only, but by merit, nearer than any other subject to the throne. All this but deepens the hatred of the king. Craft has failed. Let the purpose then be openly avowed, and force be tried. Saul speaks to Jonathan and to all his servants that they should kill David." The sharp remonstrance of his own son lays bare, even to Saul's own sight, the ingratitude and the baseness of the project; and in a moment of relenting, Saul swears, “As the Lord liveth he shall not be slain." Resting on the king's oath, David takes again his old place at the court. Once more the trumpet sounds to war. Another great battle with the Philistines is fought, and once again David covers himself with glory. It stirs up afresh Saul's envious hate, and trampling on his oath he tries again to smite David to the wall; tries, but fails, yet does not give the matter up; sends messengers to David's house, with strict orders to watch all night and to slay him in the morning. Saved from the extreme peril by Michal's ingenuity, David flies to Ramah, and accompanies Samuel thence to Naioth. This was a very unprotected place, with none there to defend David from those armed messengers, who, as soon as Saul hears where he is, are sent to take him, but a mode of protection is furnished more efficacious than sword, or shield, or spear. As the king's messengers approach, a spirit which they cannot resist seizes upon them, and, the object of their errand forgotten, they take part in the praises and in the prayers, and return to tell the king that somehow or other, they knew not how, they had been stripped of the desire and the power to execute his command. He sends other messengers; it fares the same with them. A third band is despatched, and with a like result. The baffled and irritated monarch resolves to go himself. He will test these strange reports of his messengers; he will try whether his own hand is not strong enough to lay hold of the fugitive and pluck him forth from the protection of Samuel and his prophets. He goes, but ere he gets to Naioth the Spirit of the Lord is upon him also. He looks round upon the neighbourhood; the look brings with it a strange revival of the past, suggests a strange contrast of that past with the present. Many a long year had come and gone since once before and in this very district it had been said of him as it was said now, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" Alas, to Saul, how bitter the retrospect! He remembers those golden hours irradiated by youthful hope when a throne stood glittering before his eye, and as the Spirit of the Lord came on him, he felt himself animated by noble impulses, burning with the desire to fill that throne as Samuel had been teaching him God wished to see it filled. Such was that throne to him then; what is it to him now? Such was he then; what is he now ? A deep sigh might rise over the retrospect. But this coming on him once more of the Spirit of the Lord, was there in it no augury for good? Would that Spirit have revisited the rent and shattered tenement had it been altogether incapable of repair? Who shall tell us what passed through the agitated mind of the monarch as, humbled in the dust, he "lay down naked all that day and all that night," before the Lord in Naioth of Ramah? The evil spirit was then far away, for another Spirit had possession, and perhaps beneath its influence the blackness of darkness that had been gathering on him had given way to some gentle dawnings of peace and hope. We are scarcely prepared for it, to see David, so soon after this visit of the king to Naioth, flying in terror for his life to Jonathan, and throwing himself on his friend's sympathy and aid. Still less are we prepared for it that Saul on his return from Naioth, when he finds that David does not come to the court, and that Jonathan is in collusion with him, should so far forget the respect that he owed to his own family as to turn upon his son, saying to him, "Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion? . . . For as long as the son of Jesse liveth . . . thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom ;" and when Jonathan ventures, notwithstanding the warning, to throw in a word of remonstrance in David's favour, that the king, in the vehemence of his rage, should hurl the javelin meant for David at his own son. Coming so close upon a season that could not but have been one of softening and relenting, this exhibition of temper, this manifestation of a purpose more fixed than ever to take David's life, comes upon us with surprise. An explanation of this has occurred to us, which the narrative of Saul's persecution of David when minutely scrutinised will be found, I think, to support. So far as it appears from that narrative up to the time that Samuel, Saul, and David met at Naioth, the king had no positive evidence that David was his appointed successor. His own suspicious temper and David's great popularity and commanding abilities engendered a strong belief that it might be so. But never once previous to that interview did he, by any word or deed, give indication that he counted David as a rival pretender to the throne, as a competitor with himself and his family for the kingdom. Immediately after that interview, however, on the first public occasion that occurs, he openly proclaims this, not as an imagi. nation of his own, but as a fact, of which he had in some way been assured. Let us but assume that he got his first authentic intelligence of the fact from the lips of Samuel at Ramah, that the same was the case with David, and the after conduct of both stands at once explained. It was the last opportunity that Samuel ever had of meeting with Saul, and nothing would be more natural than that he should seize upon it to reveal the whole truth to the king. Saul had sunk amazed, subdued, upon the ground, when the visitation of the Spirit came upon him, and may have shown some symptoms of returning to a better frame of mind; but when Samuel pours the unwelcome tidings in his ear, when he gets this confirmation of his worst fears, instead of lessening, as it should have done, his spite at David, instead of turning him from his deadly purpose to cut him off by death, it but aggravates the fatal passion that had got the rule of his dark spirit, and he returns from Naioth determined to do everything to frustrate the Divine decree. He makes no secret now of the ground of his persecution. He openly denounces David as a rebel, a conspirator, one who aims at subverting his government, usurping his throne, displacing his family. Taking adroit advantage of the doubtful steps followed by David, his deception of Ahimelech, his flight to, and his guile at Gath, the transfer of his family to Moab, the surrounding himself with an armed company of followers in the wilderness, Saul would have it that he was the injured and not the injurer; that it was David who was seeking his life, not he that was seeking David's. With spear in hand and his body-guard around him, it is thus that he addresses his own tribe : "Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds; that all of you have conspired against me, and that there is none that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or sheweth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?" (1 Sam. xxii. 7, 8.) The only answer to this appeal, was that made by the Edomite whom Saul had set over his servants. Doeg told all that he had seen and heard at Nob. The priests were sent for. Ahimelech had acted in ignorance. If a crime had been committed by him in aiding David in his flight, the others were not involved in the guilt. No wonder that when the king gave the order to his servants to slay all the priests, no hand was put forth upon the innocent. Such refusal to obey might have led Saul to reconsider his command. He was too passionate, too wilful. Since no Israelite will do it, the bloody task is committed to the foreigner. Eighty-five priests are slaughtered, and Nob is given up to be sacked: "the men and the women, the children and the sucklings, the oxen and the asses, and the sheep," smitten "with the edge of the sword." (1 Sam. xxii. 19.) If such was the doom visited upon those who had simply harboured David for a day in their city, what had he himself to look for if ever he fell into the king's hands? And twice he was on the eve of doing so. At Keilah Saul was so sure of him that he said, "God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars." Divinely forewarned, David escaped the peril, and fled into the wilderness of Ziph. It was difficult for the king to discover the exact place of his retreat. At last the Ziphites came with the required information, telling of the wood in the hill of Hachilah, where they had ascertained that he was hiding, in their eagerness saying, "Now, O king, come down, according to all the desire of thy soul to come down; and our part shall be to deliver him into the king's hand." A base and cowardly proposal it looks to us. It wore a very different aspect to Saul. It melted him into the softness of a weak and ill-placed gratitude. "And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the Lord; for ye have compassion on me.” The Ziphites were dismissed with the instructions to search again more carefully than before. "See therefore," said Saul to them, "and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you; and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah." The search was instituted, the discovery made. Saul and his men encircle David in the wilderness of Maon. Closer and closer the ring is drawn. The king is on the one side of the mountain, David on the other, when suddenly the message comes that the Philistines have invaded the land, and that not an hour is to be lost in repelling them. The pursuit of David has, in the meantime, to be given up, to be renewed with fresh vigour as soon as the Philistines are driven back. Once more Saul, at the head of three thousand chosen men, is in close and hot pursuit. And now, in the skirt of his robe privily cut off, and in the spear and the cruse of water taken from his head, the tokens were held up before his eyes that his life had twice been in David's power, and that twice it had been spared. The chivalrous magnanimity with which he had thus been treated, for the moment broke down the enmity of the king, and turned him from his purpose. But these temporary relentings passed away, to give place to a hatred as fierce and bloodthirsty as ever, reminding us of the soft and watery look that the surface of the frozen lake displays as the sun looks down upon it for an hour or two; only, as he withdraws his shining, to congeal again into an icy coating, thicker and harder than before. How, then, are we to explain the sudden birth, the rapid growth, the depth and the tenacity of that jealous and malignant hate which rested not till it drove David into exile? Not by saying that Saul was originally and naturally of an extremely jealous and vindictive and cruel disposition. Perhaps in ordinary circumstances, holding any common office, removed from it in any usual way, Saul could have looked on his successor with as little jealousy and illwill as any of us. But he had been unexpectedly raised to the throne, and as unexpectedly had for feited it. He had not sought it; but when it came he could not part with it. The position, the power, the glory that it brought with it, became the idol of |