the curb or bridle, proud of himself and of his position, Absalom ran on swiftly to ruin.

He was

All the great gifts he had became a curse. heir to the throne, but he could not wait for the lawful accession. His unbridled passions hurried him on to great crimes. He had never been made to obey. Why wait for the death of his father? With mad ambition he attempted to seize the crown. He stole away the hearts of the people, seduced them from their allegiance, formed a conspiracy, raised the standard of civil war, lifted his hand against his own father, chased him up the Mount of Olives and over the Jordan, and hunted him among the mountain caves of Judea as though he had been a beast of prey.

He had great personal beauty. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised for his beauty; from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him." He was a magnificent man—the idol of the nation; his hair was a wonder, and revelation records the care he took of it. But all these gifts hurried him on to the crime of rebellion, and to his death of dishonor in the woods. Beauty, generosity, large-heartedness, a splendid voice, talent, and position, have been the undoing of thousands. Sanctified by religion, they become an ornament of grace. Unrestrained, they sweep us on to destruction. In addition to all his pride, vanity, and ambition, Absalom had that fatal gift that works so much crime among the young of this daybad company and bad counselors.

We find him a king's son, with rare personal

beauty and rare gifts; his hand early stained with the blood of a near relation; betraying the confidence his father reposed in him, by playing the demagogue and traitor, as he stood at the gate of the city, saying, "Oh that I were judge in the land: I would do justice." How like a demagogue of the nineteenth century is this sleek, smooth-faced, insinuating, handsome boy-creating disloyalty in the hearts of the people-going to Hebron to lift the standard of revolt, under the pretence of service to his God-holding his secret cabals with traitors-spreading treason like a pestilence-pulling down the national standard and raising his own treasonable flag-and, when the treason was ripe, sending spies through all the land saying, "As soon as ye hear the sound of the trumpet, then shall ye say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron." And the continuation of the story-the terror of the king; his sudden cowardice; his tender regard for his rebel son; the courage of the soldier Joab, and his indomitable resolution to crush out the rebellion; the hope of the king that Absalom would escape; his great love for the traitor, for whom he would have given up his government and his life-all this, and more, with slight emendations, will be read as our own history a thousand years hence. Let us devoutly pray that treason may always find as fitting an oak to hang upon as that which Absalom found, and our nation have a successor like Solomon, and a glory even as his kingdom.

Guilt is cowardly. Absalom had a presentiment of his fate. He knew he would be held in detestation by coming ages. "Now Absalom, in his lifetime,

had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale; for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance; and he called the pillar after his own name; and it is called unto this day Absalom's place." The tomb of the traitor is in the valley of Jehoshaphat. It stands to this day. Dishonor marks it. It is mutilated by the stones cast upon it, for treason and ingratitude are inscribed on its tablets.

Absalom began life wrong.

She, who ought to

have been the guide of his youth, led him to ruin, and rolled the great curse on those that loved him most. He was brilliant, brave, popular. Used aright, his gifts would have made him the rival of Solomon. What David said to Solomon, God says to all the race: "Know, Solomon, my son, the God of thy fathers; serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee; if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever."

XXX.-THE CRAFTY CONFOUNDED IN THE TEMPLE; OR, HARD THINGS IN THE BIBLE.

"Thy word, a wondrous guiding star,

On pilgrim hearts doth rise,

Leads to their Lord, who dwells afar,

And makes the simple wise.
Let not its light

E'er sink in night,

But still in every spirit shine,

That none may miss thy light divine."

A CONSPIRACY was formed against the Son of God. It embraced the chief men of the nation, of all parties. Questions of delicacy and difficulty were framed, with deep deliberation, to ensnare our Lord in his talk, embroil him with the government as a sower of sedition, or with the people as one who attempted to undermine the common faith. The conspirators met him in the temple, and were foiled in the presence of the people. The Saviour returned the attack, and entangled these conspirators, and hoisted these moral engineers with their own petard. Out of their own sacred books he suggested difficulties and apparent contradictions that they could not clear up. These tactics silenced his enemies, who were anxious for no more public discussions with the Prophet of Nazareth.

The conspirators professed to believe the prophets. They held the common faith, that the Messiah was to

come, and come from the house of David. The problem proposed by the Lord was this: "As David, speaking by the Holy Ghost, called the Messiah Jehovah, how could he be David's son? How could the son of David be his Creator?" To the Saviour the solution was easy. The God of David "was made flesh, and dwelt among men." But the Saviour did not choose to lift the vail, but left the maligners of the Son of God discomforted and in alarm. He was willing to let men know that there were mysteries in revelation and grace that human reason could neither solve nor grasp.

And this is the spirit of the Bible. Its sacred authors take no pains to conceal the many things in the Scriptures that are above human reason. "The mystery of godliness," as set forth in the word of God, is really the same theme that shut the mouth of the revilers in the temple, is one of the hard things, viz. that "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Times, seasons, and events, which are unknown to the angels, must be so called.

"Not Gabriel asks the reason why,

Nor God the reason gives;
Nor dare the favorite angel pry
Between the folded leaves."

The Bible is put into our hands with the faults of good men written out in bold characters. It is filled with homely metaphors, so humbling to the so-called learned. It has statements that men call contradic